Patent ID: 7680193

Claim:
Method for storing video signals at a first rate and reading the stored video signals at a second rate; comprising the steps of: compressing video signals in a first buffer memory; storing the compressed video signals from said first buffer memory in a random access memory; operated synchronously during writing and reading; reading said compressed video signals from said random access memory into a second buffer memory at said first rate; reading said compressed video signals from said second buffer at said second rate such that said compressed video signals are decompressed, wherein the step of compressing video signals includes: dividing video signals to be stored each into a plural number N of parallel data streams each carrying said video signals, whereby said dividing comprises delaying said parallel data streams with respect to each other by one pixel period; and time-compressing said plural number of parallel data streams to form a respective plural number of parallel time-compressed data streams, whereby each of said time-compressed data streams is obtained by sampling every N-th pixel from the respective parallel data stream, said sampling being carried out simultaneously for said parallel data streams at said first rate; wherein the step of storing said compressed video signals from said first buffer memory in said random access memory includes: writing said time-compressed data streams to said random access memory during a write portion of a predetermined write-read cycle of said random access memory; whereby each of said time-compressed data streams takes up only a part of said predetermined write-read cycle; wherein the step of reading said compressed video signals from said random access memory into said second buffer memory at said first rate includes: reading out said time-compressed data streams from said random access memory in a read portion of said write-read cycle and feeding them to said second buffer memory; and wherein the step of reading said compressed video signals from said second buffer memory at said second rate includes: multiplexing said decompressed data streams.