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EP0473516A2 Expired / Lapsed EP ⏱️ 0.0 years remaining

Digital electronic still camera

Assignee: Sony Corp
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Filing: 1991-08-29
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2011-08-29
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Abstract

Abstract The camera is equipped to enable additional information such as an operation characteristic of the camera to be recorded into and reproduced from a removable record medium (16). A pickup image signal is picked up by a CCD image sensor (4,5) and converted into a digital signal by an analog to digital converter (9). The digital signal is temporarily stored into a digital memory (11) and written onto a removable optical disk apparatus (16). The digital electronic still camera further comprises an additional information recording and reproducing circuit (15) for recording and reproducing additional information such as an operation characteristic of the camera onto or from the optical disk apparatus.

Inventors

  • 👤 Toshiharu Kobayashi
  • 👤 Takumi Okaue
  • 👤 Hirofumi Murase
  • 👤 Hidehiko Okada

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —
Jurisdiction EP
Data Source google_patents
Last Synchronized 2026-11-09 17:26
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04N; H04N1/00; H04N1/32; H04N1/32101; H04N1/32106; H04N1/32112; H04N1/21; H04N1/2104; H04N1/2112; H04N1/2137; H04N1/2158; H04N2101/00; H04N2201/00; H04N2201/21; H04N2201/216; H04N2201/32; H04N2201/3201; H04N2201/3225; H04N2201/3252; H04N2201/3274; H04N2201/3277; Y; Y10; Y10S; Y10S358/00; Y10S358/906

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 8
Claim 1
Independent Claim 138 words
A digital electronic still camera, comprising a solid state image pickup element for picking up an image of a subject to produce a pickup image signal, means for reading out the pickup image signal for one frame in a line sequential relationship from said solid state image pickup element, means for converting the thus read out pickup image signal successively into a digital signal, a digital memory for temporarily storing the digital signal therein, means for writing the digital signal into a removable record medium removably mounted on said digital electronic still camera and reading out such digital data from the record medium, and a recording and reproducing circuit for recording additional information such as an operation characteristic of said digital electronic still camera into the removable record medium and reproducing such additional information on the record medium.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim 63 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 1, further comprising a compressing circuit for compressing data of the digital signal from said digital memory by block coding in synchronism with a reading operation of said reading out means, the record medium being a semiconductor memory into which video data to which data compression has been performed by said compressing circuit are written.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim 89 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 1, wherein said digital memory includes a cascade connection circuit of a plurality of line memories each for storing the digital signal for a plurality of lines therein, a plurality of compressing circuits each for compressing the digital signal from the corresponding line memory and a plurality buffer memories each for temporarily storing therein the compressed digital data from the corresponding compressing circuit, and means for selectively coupling said cascade connection circuit to said converting means and the removable record medium.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim 134 words
A digital electronic still camera, comprising a solid state image pickup element for picking up an image of a subject to produce a pickup image signal, means for reading out the pickup image signal for one frame in a line sequential relationship from said solid state image pickup element, means for converting the thus read out pickup image signal successively into a digital signal, a digital memory for temporarily storing the digital signal therein, means for writing the digital signal into or onto a removable record medium removably mounted on said digital electronic still camera and reading out such digital data from the record medium, and a compressing circuit for compressing data of the digital signal from said digital memory by block coding in synchronism with a reading operation of said reading out means.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim 56 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 4, wherein said digital memory includes first and second memories each having a storage capacity for a predetermined plurality of lines of the digital signal, and means for alternately selecting said first and second memories for each of the predetermined plurality of lines of the pickup image signal.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim 47 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 4 or 5, further comprising a recording and reproducing circuit for recording additional information such as an operation characteristic of said digital electronic still camera into the removable record medium and reproducing such additional information in the record medium.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim 36 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 4 or 5, wherein the record medium is a semiconductor memory into which video data to which data compression has been performed by said compressing circuit are written.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim 82 words
A digital electronic still camera according to claim 1 or 4, further comprising memory changing over means for accepting, as the record medium, both of a semiconductor memory and an optical disk apparatus and controlling writing and reading out of the digital data and recording and reproduction of the additional information into and from the semiconductor memory and the optical disk apparatus such that the semiconductor memory may be used also as a buffer memory upon recording into the optical disk apparatus.

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