Dynamic backlight adaptation for black bars with subtitles

A computer system to scale a brightness of a portion of a video image, comprising:

• a processor;
• memory;
• a program module, wherein the program module is stored in the memory and configurable to be executed by the processor, the program module including:
• instructions for receiving a video image, that when displayed, comprises a picture portion, the non-picture portion, and a subtitle which is superimposed on at least a subset of the non-picture portion, the non-picture portion having an initial brightness value;
• and
• instructions for scaling the brightness of pixels corresponding to a remainder of the non-picture portion of the video image to have a new brightness value that is greater than the initial brightness value to reduce user-perceived changes in the video image associated with backlighting of a display that displays the video image, wherein the remainder of the non-picture portion excludes the subset of the non-picture portion.

A computer system configured to scale a brightness of a portion of a video image, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• an instruction fetch unit within the processor configured to fetch:
• instructions for receiving a video image, that when displayed, comprises a picture portion, the non-picture portion, and a subtitle which is superimposed on at least a subset of the non-picture portion, the non-picture portion having an initial brightness value;
• and
• instructions for scaling the brightness of pixels corresponding to a remainder of the non-picture portion of the video image to have a new brightness value that is greater than the initial brightness value to reduce user-perceived changes in the video image associated with backlighting of a display that displays the video image, wherein the remainder of the non-picture portion excludes the subset of the non-picture portion;
• and
• an execution unit within the processor configured to execute the instructions for receiving the video image and the instructions for scaling the brightness of the pixels.

A portable device, comprising:

• a display;
• a light source configured to output light;
• an attenuation mechanism configured to modulate the output light incident on the display, the display configured to display a video image;
• and
• one or more integrated circuits, wherein the one or more integrated circuits are configured to:
• receive the video image, that when displayed, comprises a picture portion, a non-picture portion, and a subtitle which is superimposed on at least a subset of the non-picture portion, the non-picture portion having an initial brightness value;
• and
• scale the brightness of pixels corresponding to a remainder of the non-picture portion of the video image to have a new brightness value that is greater than the initial brightness value to reduce user-perceived changes in the video image associated with backlighting of the display by the light source, wherein the remainder of the non-picture portion excludes the subset of the non-picture portion.