Masahiro Kageyama

A free time-shift DVD video recorder

A DVD video recorder is proposed that frees viewers from restrictions on when a program can be viewed by allowing a program to be played while the recorder continues to record other programs. This recorder also makes recording, viewing, searching and managing programs much easier than with a conventional VCR. The recorder consists of two MPEG1+ video encoders, one MPEG2 decoder, a DVD drive with a disk changer, and a hard-disk-drive.

Improved synthetic motion signal for perfect motion-adaptive pro-scan conversion in IDTV receivers

A synthetic motion signal was previously proposed to perfect proscan conversion (see N. Suzuki et al., J. ITE, vol.42, no.9, p.966-972, 1988). Good conversion characteristics were obtained without any modification of current IDTV (NTSC) receivers, and new standards were not required. This signal was found to be only slightly visible in highly saturated image areas. An improved multiplexing method is proposed for reducing the disturbance caused by the synthetic motion signal, especially in such areas. This is accomplished by adding the signal to a linear main signal. Hence, the synthetic motion signal does not leak to other components on the display, and disturbance is minimized. Subjective assessment showed that this method is clearly effective. >

Prototype mobile phone capable of receiving and collaborating with terrestrial digital TV broadcasting

The prototype mobile phone reported here receives digital terrestrial TV broadcasting. The prototype fully complies with broadcast markup language and it enables the mutual linking of communications content and broadcasting content.

New communication style using television broadcasting and the Internet

This paper presents (i) a new communication style in which a subject of interest such as a visual object rendered by TV broadcasting is directly linked with chat messages, (ii) a method of grouping TV viewers who are interested in the same visual object, and (iii) a method of sharing thumbnail images without transmitting the video data itself.

Film Mode Signal Processing for EDTV-II and Subjective Assessments.

The authors have already proposed introducing “film mode” signal processing into EDTV-II. In the mode, I-P (interlaced to progressive) scan conversion of film images can be theoretically improved without a VT helper signal by using a reserved bit of the EDTV-II signaling codes as a film mode signaling code. In this paper, they propose an improved signaling method which can be applied to various frame rates of original films by indicating whether the current field has been generated from the same film frame as the previous field. They also implemented a signaling code regenerator and a film mode I-P scan converter, and clarified picture quality by using subjective assessments. The assessments showed that the picture quality decoded in the film mode was generally better than the one in the current EDTV-II mode.

Hardware Experiments on Progressive Scan Conversion of an IDTV Receiver Suitable for Telecine Image.

“Telecine images” converted from film images have a lower frame rate than ordinary TV signals. This allows interlaced scan signals to be completely converted into progressive scan signals at IDTV receivers by using the “film-frame-closed” method. In this method, transmitted fields are combined into a TV frame every 2-or 3-field sequences (i.e., every film-frame sequence).Hardware experiments of the above method, including subjective assessments, are descrived in this paper. The experiments clarify the following : (1) On average, the above method improves picture quality between 1 and 1.5 ranks on the CCIR seven-grade scale, compared with the conventional motion adaptive method. (2) Receivers can distinguish telecine images without the need for marker signals. (3) However, when other images, such as subtitles, are super-imposed, the method does not work well. Several solutions to solve this problem are also proposed.