Digital zoom-out processing apparatus

Claim 1

A digital zoom-out apparatus for forming a zoomed-out image from a plurality of received image signals in accordance with a given magnification, the apparatus comprising: an image signal storage unit which stores a plurality of frame or field image signals; a motion information detector which detects motion information between first and second image signals of the plurality of frame or field image signals; and a record and control unit which zooms out the received frame or field image signals in accordance with the given magnification, receives motion information from said motion information detector, controls the location in said image signal storage where the zoomed-out image signals are to be recorded, and records zoomed-out image signals in said image signal storage unit, wherein the first image signal corresponds to a first image of a first area, and the second image signal corresponds to a second image of a second area, and wherein the plurality of received frame or field images, including the first and second images, are zoomed-out and combined to form the zoomed-out image, which is synthesized according to a degree of overlap between the received images, the zoomed-out image including overlapping portions of at least the first and second areas, and at least some of non-overlapping portions of the first and second areas.