Pause time recovery and playback speed-up without loss of picture information

Abstract

The invention concerns a method and digital recording device for faster than normal playback of a 24 fps presentation without any loss of program information. A 24 fps playback signal is produced from a storage medium. Subsequently, a pull-down process can be performed to reformat the 24 fps playback signal for a video display, for example at 30 fps. Finally, redundant field pictures produced by the pull-down process can be selectively dropped to increase a playback speed of the presentation. The method can further include the step of selectively controlling a number of the redundant field pictures that are dropped responsive to a user input. This step can be performed automatically by calculating the rate at which the redundant field pictures must be dropped responsive to a user input.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.