Abstract:
An apparatus of changing a display size and a method thereof in an image recording and reproducing apparatus are provided. The apparatus includes an MPEG decoder for separating a signal reproduced by an optical disc reproducing device and outputting the separated signal; a scaler for changing the size of the signal output from the MPEG decoder and outputting the signal having the changed size; and a control unit for controlling to display a screen-size selection screen on the display device, driving the scaler to change the reproduced image to have a selected screen size, and controlling to display the changed image on the display device, thereby changing the display size. Thus, the screen size can be adjusted when the image quality is significantly deteriorated on a large-sized screen, thereby solving a problem of image spread or pixel damage.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     The present Application claims benefit from Korean Patent Application No. 2004-54422, filed on Jul. 13, 2004, which is incorporated in full herein by reference.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0003]     The present invention relates to an apparatus for adjusting a display size and a method thereof, and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for compensating the quality of an image to be displayed on a screen through the adjustment of the screen size if the image quality is poor.  
         [0004]     2. Description of the Related Art  
         [0005]     With the digitalization of a broadcast signal and the development of a compression technique, an image recording and reproducing apparatus capable of recording a multimedia signal and a broadcast signal in a storage medium or reproducing the recorded broadcast signal is being developed to support the use of a variety of image sources, such as satellite broadcast, cable broadcast, Internet network broadcast, and the like. The image recording and reproducing apparatus is configured to store images in an optical medium, such as a CD-ROM or a digital versatile disc (DVD), and to reproduce the stored data. In such an optical medium, an image quality is not deteriorated over use time, and high image quality images and multi-channel (e.g., 5.1 channel) audio data can be stored therein. In recent years, therefore, the optical medium has rapidly substituted for a conventional analog image storage medium.  
         [0006]     In the case where a moving image (picture) signal stored in such a medium is to be sent as a digital signal, a vast amount of the moving image signal is reduced and sent by high-rate data compression.  
         [0007]     A high-resolution image from a video source must be first converted to a low-resolution image of a Common Intermediate Format (CIF), a Quarter CIF (QCIF) or the like, which is primarily used for moving-image communication. Simply decimating each pixel based on a scaling ratio in the conversion to the low-resolution image deteriorates the image quality and thus, a filtering process based on correlations between neighboring pixels is required. The filtering process for preventing the deterioration of the image quality due to the conversion to a desired image size in such a method prior to a moving-image encoding process is called preprocessing.  
         [0008]     A related art regarding a method and an apparatus for scaling up or down a video image during the preprocessing process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,874,937 entitled “Method and apparatus for scaling up and down a video image,” in  FIGS. 1A and 1B .  
         [0009]     As shown in  FIG. 1A , a liquid crystal displayer displays a video image generated by a PC  1  onto a screen. The liquid crystal projector includes a central processing unit (CPU)  9 , a main memory  8 , an input panel  7  functioning as input part, an analog/digital (A/D) converter  2 , a frame memory  3 , a video scaler  4 , a liquid crystal display (LCD) driver  5 , an LCD panel  6 , and a light source.  
         [0010]     The frame memory  3  includes three memory plates for storing R, G and B signals. The LCD driver  5  and the LCD panel  6  provide the R, G and B signals. The CPU  9  functions as a frequency determining unit  9   a  for determining a frequency of a synchronization signal (SYNC) provided by the PC  1 , and a resolution determining unit  9   b  for determining resolution based on the synchronization signal (SYNC). The CPU  9  executes computer program codes stored in the main memory  8  to implement the above-stated functions. The A/D converter  2  converts an analog video signal (VPC) generated by the PC  1  to a digital video signal (DPC), and provides the digital video signal (DPC) to the video scaler  4 . The video scaler  4  receives the digital video signal (DPC) as well as the synchronization signal (SYNC) output from the PC  1 . The video scaler  4  reads a video signal from the frame memory  3  and writes the input digital video signal (DPC) to the frame memory  3  while providing the video signal to the LCD driver  5 . In the writing and reading operations, the video scaler  4  scales up or down the video image to match the video image to a standard resolution of the LCD panel  6 . The LCD driver  5  reproduces the video image from the video scaler  4  on the LCD panel  6 . The video image reproduced on the LCD panel  6  is projected as a color image onto a screen by means of an optical system contained in the light source.  
         [0011]     The function of the video scaler will be now described with reference to  FIG. 1B .  
         [0012]     The video image is generated with several resolutions (e.g., 640×400, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, and 1600×1200) by the PC  1 . On the other hand, the standard resolution of the LCD panel  6  is fixed to a predetermined value and is assumed herein to be 800×600. The video scaler  4  scales up or down the input video signal (VPC) in order to generate a video signal having the standard resolution of the LCD panel  6 .  
         [0013]     If a video signal is generated by PC  1  and is input to the liquid crystal projector, a video image represented by the video signal (VPC) will be produced on the entire screen of the LCD panel. That is, in order to display the image on the display device (i.e., LCD panel) having the 800×600 presolution, the size of the input image must be normally selected from 640×400, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, and 1600×1200 because the display device supports only a scaling ratio of a limited image.  
         [0014]     There is a problem with the above stated apparatus that only a limited size of an image must be used as the input video because only a specific size of the input video image can be scaled up/down to obtain an output video image having desired resolution.  
         [0015]     In particular, because a DIVX player displays an image in an almost fixed screen size (e.g., full screen) while playing back all discs, a deteriated image is appeared on a screen of a 40 inch or higher size when an original file has low resolution. As a solution for solving this problem, there is a progressive screen (PSO). However, a specification of the PSO can be used for a component output, namely, a National Television System Committee (NTSC) specification, but cannot be used, in particular, for the European SCART output. This is because DIVX files are mainly composed of MPEG4 files and includes files of the above-stated resolution as well as files of lower resolution, such as 176×144, 352×240, 720×480 or the like in pixels.  
         [0016]     A predetermined screen ratio is not concerned with a good image quality DVD. However, photographs taken by a digital camera having the small number of pixels, camcorder images, or computer based digital images including MPEG4 of a high compression rate have a predetermined screen ratio when made, and the ratio and image quality may be suitable for the size of a computer monitor but does not guarantee sufficient image quality on a large-sized television (TV). When an image of low resolution is viewed on the large-sized TV, the image quality may be deteriorated and pixels may be viewed in a broken form or a spreading form. The DVD has some limited screen sizes (e.g., 16:9, 4:3, etc.). An image, which has a changed screen size selected by software, is only provided to the TV. This is only intended to implement a screen size of a theater and does not consider the resolution of an image to be displayed. Accordingly, low quality of the image cannot be compensated.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0017]     Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.  
         [0018]     The present invention has been made to solve the aforementioned problems. It is an object of the present invention to compensate the quality of an image to be displayed on a large-sized screen through the adjustment of the screen size if the image quality is poor.  
         [0019]     According to an aspect of the present invention for achieving the aforementioned object, there is provided a method of displaying an image stored in an optical disc on a display device, the method including steps of reading a resolution of an optical disc data to be reproduced; displaying a screen-size selection screen; and changing the resolution of the optical disc to be reproduced to a size of the selected screen and displaying a resultant image on the display device. The displaying of the screen-size selection screen may include a step of displaying a guide message screen for selecting any one mode among an auto mode in which an aspect ratio is changed at a uniform ratio inch by inch, a manual mode in which the up, down, left and right of the image are changed manually, and an optimized mode in which the screen size is automatically changed to a prescribed size depending on a recording resolution of the reproduced optical disc data.  
         [0020]     According to an aspect of the present invention, the resolution of the display device is read, and the reproduced image is displayed in the recording resolution of the reproduced optical disc on the display device when the recording resolution of the reproduced optical disc is lower than the resolution of the display device.  
         [0021]     When the manual mode is selected in the displaying the screen-size selection screen, icons are displayed on respective up, down, left and right sides of the display device, wherein the icons are composed of manual adjustment arrows. Accordingly, it is possible for a user to change the screen size easily.  
         [0022]     According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for displaying an image stored in an optical disc on a display device, the apparatus including an MPEG decoder for separating a signal reproduced by an optical disc reproducing device and outputting the separated signal; a scaler for changing a size of the signal output from the MPEG decoder and outputting the signal having the changed size; and a control unit for controlling to display a screen-size selection screen on the display device, driving the scaler to change the reproduced image to have a selected screen size, and controlling to display the changed image on the display device. The screen-size selection screen may display a guide message screen for selecting any one mode among an auto mode in which an aspect ratio is changed at a uniform ratio inch by inch, a manual mode in which the up, down, left and right of the image are changed manually, and an optimized mode in which the screen size is automatically changed to a prescribed size depending on the recording resolution of the reproduced optical disc. Accordingly, it is possible for a user to select any one mode and change the screen size easily.  
         [0023]     According to an aspect of the present invention, the resolution of the display device is read, and the scaler is controlled such that the reproduced image is displayed in the recording resolution of the reproduced optical disc on the display device when the resolution of the reproduced optical disc data is lower than the resolution of the display device. According to another aspect of the present invention, the control unit may control to display up, down, left and right menu icons the display device when the manual mode is selected to display the selection menu icons. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0024]     These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:  
         [0025]     The above and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by describing in detail preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which:  
         [0026]      FIG. 1A  is a block diagram of a conventional liquid crystal projector;  
         [0027]      FIG. 1B  is a view illustrating a function of a conventional video scaler;  
         [0028]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a DVD player according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0029]      FIG. 3  is a flow diagram illustrating a method of adjusting a screen size for each resolution for reproduction;  
         [0030]      FIG. 4A  is a view illustrating a GUI screen for adjusting a screen size; and  
         [0031]      FIG. 4B  is a view illustrating a GUI screen for manual adjustment. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0032]     Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. The embodiments are described below to explain the present invention by referring to the figures.  
         [0033]     Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.  
         [0034]     A DVD image recording and reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to  FIG. 2 . A shown DVD player includes a switching unit  110 , an MPEG encoder unit  120 , a display device  130 , a flash ROM  140 , a control unit  150 , an RAM  152 , a light receiving unit  170 , a digital signal processing unit  180 , and a DVD player  190 .  
         [0035]     The switching unit  110  receives a variety of external image data and/or audio data and outputs an image data from the digital signal processing unit  180  to the display device  130 . The switching unit  110  receives an external signal, such as a component or composite signal from a video cassette recorder or a broadcasting station (not shown), and selectively transmits the signal to the function blocks in the DVD player. For example, when the external signal from an external device such as the video cassette recorder is the component or composite signal, the switching unit applies the external signal to the MPEG encoder unit  120 .  
         [0036]     The MPEG encoder unit  120  is composed of a video decoder  121 , an audio ADC  122 , and an MPEG encoder  123 . The MPEG encoder unit  120  converts analog data among image data from the switching unit  110  to digital data, and compresses the digital data into a MPEG format (e.g., MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format).  
         [0037]     The flash ROM  140  is a program memory for storing the programs used by the control unit. The flash ROM  140  also stores a size change GUI screen (see  FIG. 4A ) to be displayed by the control of the control unit  150  when a user desires to change the size of the screen, and a GUI screen (see  FIG. 4B ) for adjusting the up, down, left and right of the screen in a manual mode. The flash ROM  140  also stores an optimal screen display database that allows the image to be displayed in an optimal screen size based on the resolution of the image stored in a disc  192  and the resolution of the display device. That is, the flash ROM  140  stores a conversion table that allows the image to be viewed without picture quality deterioration or the screen being spread when the resolution of the disc  192  to be reproduced is lower than the resolution of the display device. The conversion table will be now discussed with reference to Table 1.  
                       TABLE 1                       Original resolution               information   TV size   Output Display Size                   720 × 576 or more   X   Full Screen (Scaling Factor: 1)       352 × 248˜720 × 576   X   Full Screen (Scaling Factor: 1)       176 × 144˜352 × 248   X   Half of Full Screen               Scaling Factor               Vertical: 0.5               Horizontal: 0.5       176 × 144 or less   X   ⅓ of Full Screen               Scaling Factor               Vertical: 0.33               Horizontal: 0.33                  
 
         [0038]     Table 1 is a conversion table indicating optimal resolutions of the display device depending on resolution information of an input image as resolution standards of a DIVX File. The control unit  150  reads input image resolution recorded in a header portion of the input image, recognizes an output display size corresponding to the input image resolution from Table 1, and sends a relevant scaling factor to the scaler  182 . The scaler  182  will adjust the screen size based on the received scaling factor.  
         [0039]     The control unit  150  records an MPEG data output from the MPEG encoder unit  120  on the DVD player  190 . In the playback, the control unit  150  reads out data from a file information area and a recording information area of the disc to recognize resolution information, and outputs a relevant scaling factor value in the flash ROM  140  to the scaler  182 , so that the image is produced and output in a proper screen ratio. The control unit  150  also controls the scaler  182  so that the user adjusts the screen size into a desired screen size.  
         [0040]     The key input unit  160  receives a key input for adjusting the screen size and applies the received key input to the control unit  150 .  
         [0041]     The light receiving unit  170  receives a control signal (not shown) from a remote control (not shown) for controlling the DVD image recording and reproducing apparatus (e.g., channel switching, volume controlling, image quality adjusting, or the like), and applies the received control signal to the control unit  50 .  
         [0042]     The digital signal processing unit  180  receives, via the control unit  150 , MPEG format image data, which is reproduced from a DVD, and decodes the received image data at the MPEG decoder  181 . The scaler  182  receives a signal from the MPEG decoder  181  and processes the received signal based on the scaling factor value received from the control unit  150 , so that a low-resolution image is displayed in a small size on the screen and a high-resolution image is displayed in a full screen. The scaler  182  also scales up or down in 4 directions (top, bottom, left and right) or more directions the screen size of the image to be output, under the control of the control unit  150 . As in this exemplary embodiment, the scaler may normally process the digital signal and then change that size. Alternatively, the scaler may first change the size and then process the digital signal.  
         [0043]     The DVD player  190  is an optical disc reproducing device. The DVD player  190  reproduces video data and/or audio data from the DVD disc, and provides the reproduced video and/or audio data to the digital signal processing unit  180  for scaling. The DVD player  190  also records, on the disc, a signal from the MPEG encoder unit  120 .  
         [0044]     The disc  192  refers to a disc that stores low-resolution moving images from digital cameras or Internet, camcorder images, and the like.  
         [0045]     A method for adjusting a display size using the foregoing configuration will be now described with reference to the accompanying drawings. The detailed discussion on a method capable of adjusting the size of a screen displayed on a typical television receiver and a technique of scaling up or down an image depending on a specific input resolution will be omitted because the method and technique are described in Korean Patent No. 10-0222703 entitled “Method for adjusting a screen size” and Korean Laid-open Patent No. 10-2004-0022737 entitled “Preprocessing circuit and method in a moving image encoder”, respectively. That is, the scaler  182  includes an “H Scaler” and a “V Scaler.” The H Scaler and the V Scaler are configured to adjust the screen size through the adjustment of H_Sync and V_Sync values when receiving a factor value as data.  
         [0046]      FIG. 3  is a flow diagram illustrating a method of adjusting a screen size for each reproduction resolution according to an embodiment of the present invention.  FIGS. 4A and 4B  illustrate GUI screens for adjusting the screen size.  
         [0047]     Referring to  FIG. 2  and  FIG. 3 , if the disc  192  is loaded into the DVD player  190 , the control unit  150  receives the resolution of an image to be reproduced (hereinafter, referred to as PR) from a data streaming header in the disc, and also receives the resolution of a display device (hereinafter, referred to as DR) (S 210 ).  
         [0048]     The control unit  150  compares the received resolutions to each other (S 220 ). If the PR is lower than the DR, the control unit  150  drives the scaler  182  so that the image is displayed in the resolution of the image on the television (TV)  130  (S 230 ). On the contrary, if the PR is higher than the DR, the control unit  150  drives the scaler  182  to scale up or down the image from the disc so that the image resolution matches to that of the display device (TV) (S 240 ). Alternatively, the resolution of an image may be obtained from the disc type. Thus, a scaling ratio can be obtained accordingly. The input image will be scaled up or down based on the scaling ratio between the input image and the display device and be then displayed.  
         [0049]     At this time, when receiving a key input from the key input unit  160  for adjusting the size of the image displayed on the display device  130  (S 250 ), the control unit  150  displays the size change GUI (see  FIG. 4A ) stored in the flash ROM  140  on the display device  130  and waits to receive a key input (S 252 ). The size change GUI is composed of a guide message or prompt by which a user can adjust the screen size in an auto mode, a manual mode or an optimized mode. If it is determined (S 260 ) that an “auto mode” selection key is pressed (S 252 ), the control unit  150  drives the scaler  182  to change the scaling factor value both horizontally and vertically so that the image is displayed on the screen with the screen ratio being automatically changed. In the auto mode, an aspect ratio is incremented or decremented in a predetermined ratio. It is understandable that the image can be automatically scaled up or down from a maximum size (a full screen) to a minimum size (resolution of reproduced image), and an image size to which a user desires to set is determined by the user using a stop key. If it is determined (S 262 ) that a “manual mode” selection key is pressed (S 252 ), manual adjustment arrows  132  and  133  are displayed as icons at respective up, down, left and right sides of the displayed image so that the user can adjust the screen size up and down or left and right to a desired screen size (S 280 ) by essentially dragging the cursor.  
         [0050]     Thereafter, if the user selects arrow movement keys on the key input unit  160 , the control unit  150  drives the scaler  182  to change the image only by a relevant size and display the changed image (S 282 ). At this time, the control unit  150  drives the scaler  182  to change only a relevant scaling factor value upon movement of the up, down, left and right arrows. That is, if the user moves the up and down arrows, only the “V_Sync” value is changed by a predetermined steps. If the user moves the left and right arrows, only the “H_Sync” value is incremented and decremented by predetermined steps.  
         [0051]     Further, if it is determined (S 264 ) that the optimized mode is selected (S 252 ), the control unit  150  receives the reproduction size information from the disc and controls to output the image in an optimal image size in the database (Table 1), which stored in the flash ROM  140 .  
         [0052]     In the embodiment, it has been described that, if it is determined in operation S 220  that the resolution of the image is lower than the resolution of the display device, the controller drives the scaler  182  to output the image in the resolution of the image (S 230 ). On the other hand, in  FIG. 5 , if it is determined in operation S 320  that the resolution of the image is lower than the resolution of the display device, the control unit  150  reads the reproduction size information from the disc and controls to output the image in the optimal image size present in the database (Table 1), which is prescribed and stored in the flash ROM  140 . Further, if the screen size change GUI is displayed in operation S 352 , only the auto mode of operation S 360  and the manual mode of operation S 362  may be displayed. Of course, if the resolution of the image is lower than the resolution of the display device, the image display may be made in the optimized mode, and the screen size adjustment may be made only in both the auto mode and the manual mode.  
         [0053]     As described above, with the apparatus for adjusting a display size and the method thereof according to the present invention, it is possible to solve a problem of image spread or pixel collapse on the large-sized screen by adjusting the screen size, when the image quality is greatly deteriorated on the screen, like images stored in discs or DVDs having PC based images such as DIVX, MPEG4, WMV, camcorder images, digital camera photograph images, or the like.  
         [0054]     Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.