Contour restoration apparatus

Claim 1

A contour restoration apparatus comprising: an input terminal for video signals; a plurality of delay circuits connected in series to said input terminal, each of said plurality of delay circuits having a predetermined delay time for a signal input thereto; a maximum value detection circuit for detecting a maximum value among an input video signal and output signals of said plurality of delay circuits; a minimum value detection circuit for detecting a minimum value among signals same as those input to said maximum value detection circuit; a mean value circuit for calculating a mean value of output signals of said maximum and minimum value detection circuits; a subtraction means for subtracting said mean value from a delayed signal output from one of said plurality of delay circuits, wherein said delayed signal has a delay time of one-half of a delay time obtained by a total of said plurality of said delay circuits; a gain controller for amplifying the output of said subtraction means with a predetermined gain; an adder for adding the output of said gain controller and said delayed signal input to said subtraction means; a non-linear processing circuit to which the output of said adder and the maximum and minimum values output by said maximum and minimum detection circuits are input, said non-linear processing circuit outputting the maximum value if the output signal of said adder is larger than the maximum value, outputting the minimum value if the output signal of said adder is smaller than the minimum value, and outputting the output signal of said adder if the output signal of said adder is between the maximum value and the minimum value; and an output terminal for outputting the output of said non-linear processing circuit as a contour restored signal.