Patent ID: 6023553
Filing Date: 2000-02-08
Classification: G11B,H04N

Abstract:
A data reduction method, for reducing the amount of data used to represent an image, the method comprising the steps of:receiving a first set of encoded data representing the image;decoding the first set of data to generated a decoded set of data representing the image; andencoding the decoded set of data representing the image to produce a second set of encoded data including a plurality of macroblocks, the second set of encoded data being smaller than the first set of encoded data, the encoding step including the steps of:performing a variable length encoding operation to generate for each macroblock a plurality of amplitude/runlength pairs; andlimiting, as part of the variable length encoding operation, the number of amplitude/runlength pairs included in each macroblock to thereby reduce the amount of data used to represent each macroblock to an amount that will result in the second set of encoded data being smaller than the first set.