Patent ID: 8339519

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, in which an interpolation frame is inserted between a current frame of an image and a first delayed frame preceding the current frame by one frame, the apparatus comprising: a motion vector detector referring to current-frame block data forming part of the current frame and second-delayed-frame block data forming part of a second delayed frame preceding the current frame by two frames, thereby calculating a first motion vector pointing from the second delayed frame to the first delayed frame, the motion vector detector referring to the current-frame block data and first-delayed-frame block data forming part of the first delayed frame preceding the current frame by one frame, thereby calculating a second motion vector pointing from the current frame to the first delayed frame; a motion vector converter converting the first motion vector into a third motion vector pointing from the first delayed frame to the interpolation frame, the motion vector converter converting the second motion vector into a fourth motion vector pointing from the current frame to the interpolation frame; and an interpolation frame generator generating data of the interpolation frame from the third motion vector, the fourth motion vector, data of the first delayed frame and data of the current frame, thereby outputting image data in which the data of the interpolation frame is inserted between the data of the current frame and the data of the first delayed frame; wherein the motion vector detector includes a test interpolator outputting a plurality of items of test interpolation data which includes first test interpolation data generated using an average value of both block data of the second-delayed-frame block data and the current-frame block data, second test interpolation data generated by placing the current-frame block data at a position corresponding to a position of the first-delayed-frame block data, and third test interpolation data generated by placing the second-delayed-frame block data at a position corresponding to the position of the first-delayed-frame block data, an interpolation data evaluator evaluating a correlation of each of the test interpolation data with reference to the first-delayed-frame block data, thereby outputting a plurality of items of evaluation data indicating results of the evaluating, and a motion vector determiner outputting a motion vector of an item of the evaluation data having highest correlation in the plurality of items of the evaluation data; and the first test interpolation data, the second test interpolation data and the third test interpolation data are obtained as the plurality of items of the test interpolation data from a plurality of items of the second-delayed-frame block data and a plurality of items of the current-frame block data.