Patent ID: 6760478
Filing Date: 2004-07-06
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A method of providing compression of video data input to a video compression/decompression unit (VCDU) coupled to a central processor unit (CPU), said video data comprising a plurality of frames, including predictive frames and bi-directional frames, each of said frames apportioned into a plurality of macroblocks, each of said macroblocks comprising a plurality of pixels, said method comprising the steps of:said VCDU comparing each of said frames to other ones of said frames to estimate the motion characteristics of each of said macroblocks of each of said frames; determining, by said CPU, a coding type for each of said macroblocks of each of said frames responsive to said motion characteristics provided from said VCDU; said VCDU encoding each of said macroblocks of each of said frames responsive to said coding type determined by said CPU to provide one or more tokens for each of said plurality of frames; buffering, by said CPU, selected ones of said bi-directional frames and processing the buffered frames out of order in which said plurality of frames initially occur; translating, by said CPU, said one or more tokens for each of said plurality of frames into a bit stream for storage in a storage device; and wherein said VCDU and said CPU are connected by an input-output bus and the steps of the VCDU comparing and the CPU determining provide for minimal traffic on the input-output bus while tasks are efficiently apportioned between said VCDU and said CPU.