Data transmission system

Claim 2

A data transmission system comprising means for quantizing each of a succession of analog input signals into a quantized signal, means for converting each of said quantized signals into a digital coded signal comprising a set of parallel bits, a plurality of storage means equal in number to the plurality of bits forming said digital coded signal, each storage means associated with a different order bit for storing therein the corresponding order bits of a succession of said digital coded signals, means for reading the bits stored in each of said pluRality of storage means serially by storage means and serially by bit within each individual storage means and for carrying out data compression of the bit string read out of the storage means to provide a corresponding compressed data bit string, and means for transmitting the compressed data bit string.

Claim 3

A data transmission system as defined in claim 1 wherein said plurality of storage means comprises a plurality of serial-in, serial-out shift registers.

Claim 4

A data transmission system as defined in claim 2 wherein two shift registers are provided for storing the bits of each bit order of said digital coded signals, and means is provided for serially reading out the contents of one of the shift registers associated with each bit order while successive digital coded signals are being stored in the other shift registers associated with each bit order.

Claim 5

A data transmission system as defined in claim 1 wherein said analog input signals are analog video signals obtained by scanning a subject copy having a halftone image recorded thereupon.

Claim 6

A data transmission system as defined in claim 4 wherein said plurality of storage means comprise a plurality of shift registers capable of storing therein the bits of one scanning line.

Claim 7

A data transmission system comprising means for sampling and quantizing analog input signals into quantized signals, means for converting said quantized signals into digital coded signals, a first group of a plurality of storage means each for storing therein bits from the same bit position of said digital coded signals, means for reading the contents of each of said first group of a plurality of storage means serially by storage means and serially within each individual storage means to thereby form a bit string and for carrying out data compression of the read out bit string to provide compressed serial data, means for transmitting the compressed serial data, means for expanding the transmitted compressed serial data to reproduce the original bit string, a second group of a plurality of storage means each for storing therein the bits of the same bit position of said reproduced bit string, and means for reading out in parallel the contents of said plurality of storage means of said second group and for converting the groups of bits read out in parallel into analog signals.

Claim 8

A data transmission system comprising means for sampling and quantizing analog input signals into quantized signals, means for converting said quantized signals into digital coded signals, a first group of a plurality of storage means each for storing therein bits from the same bit position of said digital coded signals, means for reading the contents of each of said first group of a plurality of storage means serially by storage means and serially within each individual storage means to thereby form a bit string and for carrying out data compression of the read out bit string to provide compressed serial data, means for transmitting the compressed serial data, means for expanding the transmitted compressed serial data to reproduce the original bit string, a second group of a plurality of storage means each for storing therein the bits of the same bit position of said reproduced bit string, and means for reading out in parallel the contents of said plurality of storage means of said second group and for converting the groups of bits read out in parallel into analog signals.

Claim 11

A system as in claim 7 wherein each of said N storage means is a serial shift register.

Claim 12

A system as in claim 7 wherein said succession of digital words are derived by scanning a halftone subject copy and converting each resulting analog signal representing the brightness of an elementary area into an N-bit digital word.

Claim 13

A system as in claim 7 wherein each of said N storage means comprises a first and a second storage means, the means for storing bits in each of said N storage means comprises means for alternating between storing a succession of bits in all first storage means and storing a succession of bits in all second storage means, and the means for subsequently reading out the contents of the storage means comprises means for reading from those of the first and second storage means into which no storing is taking place.

Claim 14

A system as in claim 7 comprising means for receiving the compressed digital signal and for decompressing the received signal to provide a single bit String corresponding to the bit string read out from said N storage means, and means for converting the bit string resulting from decompression into the corresponding succession of N-bit digital words.