Patent ID: 7379103

Claim:
A picture synthesizing apparatus comprising: a first synthesis means for synthesizing base picture data with picture data to produce synthesized data, said first synthesis means including a transparency control circuit configured to control the transparency of said picture data with respect to said base picture data based on luminance of said picture data, and to generate mix picture data, said first synthesis means including a fade controller to receive and use a fade coefficient to control fade processing of said synthesized data in accordance with said fade coefficient, wherein a first control signal is received by said transparency control circuit and is used to determine the degree of transmittance used in synthesizing base picture data with the mix picture data, wherein said first control signal and a gain setting signal are received by a fade coefficient generating circuit and are used to set a single-color fade or cross fade as a fade type in said fade processing; and wherein said first control signal includes a transparency validity flag indicating whether the determination of the degree of transmittance is valid, wherein, when the degree of transmittance is determined to be invalid, a degree of transparency is determined to be opaque, and wherein when the degree of transmittance is determined to be valid, the degree of transparency is determined to be transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque as a function of luminance data in the first control signal; a single-color-picture generating means for generating a piece of single-color picture data or a plurality of pieces of single-color picture data; a select means for selecting said base picture data or said piece of single-color picture data or one of said plurality of pieces of single-color picture data generated by said single-color-picture generating means, said select means operating to use said selected base picture data or single-color picture data in fade processing of said base picture data and said mix picture data; and a second synthesis means for synthesizing an output of said first synthesis means with an output of said select means.