High quality video and graphics pipeline

An video/graphics data processing pipeline, comprising:

• a pre-processing circuit that is configured to pre-process a stream of digital video/graphics data and output pre-processed data;
• a color key processing circuit, operably coupled to the pre-processing circuit, that is configured to extract a color key from the pre-processed data and output resulting data;
• and
• a processing/transforming circuit, operably coupled to the color key processing circuit, that is configured to process and transform the resulting data, wherein the processing/transforming circuit includes:
• a up-filtering circuit, operably coupled to the color key processing circuit, that is configured to perform up-filtering on the resulting data and output up-filtered data;
• and
• a conversion circuit, operably coupled to the up-filtering circuit, that is configured to perform color space conversion on the up-filtered data and output converted data.

An video/graphics data processing method, comprising the steps of:

• (a) pre-processing a stream of digital video/graphics data to output pre-processed data;
• (b) processing a color key from the pre-processed data to output resulting data;
• and
• (c) after step (b), processing and transforming the resulting data, wherein step (b) includes a step of substituting the color key with a pre-selected color.

An video/graphics data processing method, comprising the steps of:

• (a) pre-processing a stream of digital video/graphics data to output pre-processed data;
• (b) processing a color key from the pre-processed data to output resulting data;
• and
• (c) after step (b), processing and transforming the resulting data, wherein step (c) includes the steps of:
• (i) performing up-filtering on the resulting data and output up-filtered data;
• and
• (ii) performing color space conversion on the up-filtered data to output converted data.