Method for the transmitting/recording of video signals of different aspect ratios

Claim 1

A method of digitally transmitting/recording line-oriented component-coded television signals in which, in order to change from a first aspect ratio to a second aspect ratio instead of the first aspect ratio, at least a part of required additional transmitting/recording capacity is obtained through under sampling of components, comprising the steps of: transmitting/recording the coded television signal in said second aspect ratio from a facility provided for the first aspect ratio; vertically under sampling at least one chrominance component of the coded television signal transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio; transporting a picture with said first aspect ratio data obtained from luminance or chrominance of the television signal, transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio being arranged instead of original chrominance data of the television signal having said first aspect ratio, and further including block companding luminance and chrominance components of a plurality of pixel values by applying the steps of; determining a maximum and a minimum pixel value for each of said blocks, subtracting said minimum pixel value from said maximum pixel value to obtain an activity value, subtracting said activity value from each of said pixel values, and transmitting/recording each value of said block with reduced length and together with said activity value, comprising the steps of; quantitizing said activity value with a non-uniform characteristic and a fixed number of steps to obtain a quantitized activity value; quantitizing said minimum pixel value using a step number to obtain a quantitized pixel value, subtracting a quantitized minimum value from each of said quantitized pixel value to obtain difference pixel values controlled by said step number; and coding said quantitized activity value using the difference between the largest and the smallest step number.

Claim 2

A method of digitally transmitting/recording line-oriented component-coded television signals in which, in order to change from a first aspect ratio to a second aspect ratio instead of the first aspect ratio, at least a part of required additional transmitting/recording capacity is obtained through under sampling of components, comprising the steps of: transmitting/recording the coded television signal in said second aspect ratio from a facility provided for the first aspect ratio; vertically under sampling at least one chrominance component of the coded television signal transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio; transporting a picture with said first aspect ratio data obtained from luminance or chrominance of the television signal, transporting a picture with said second aspect ratio being arranged instead of original chrominance data of the television signal having said first aspect ratio, and further including block companding luminance and chrominance components of a plurality of pixel values by applying the steps of; determining a maximum and a minimum pixel value for each of said blocks, subtracting said minimum pixel value from said maximum pixel value to obtain an activity value, subtracting said activity value from each of said pixel values, and transmitting/recording each value of said block with reduced length and together with said activity value, comprising the steps of; quantitizing said activity value with a non-uniform characteristic and a fixed number of steps to obtain a quantitized activity value; quantitizing said minimum pixel value using a step number to obtain a quantitized pixel value, subtracting a quantitized minimum value from each of said quantitized pixel value to obtain difference pixel values controlled by said step number; and coding said quantitized activity value using the difference between the largest and the smallest step number.