Patent ID: 7002627

Claim:
A direct converter comprising: an input buffer coupled to receive a stream of pixels in a Bayer pattern wherein each pixel location has no more than one of a red (R) pixel, a blue (B) pixel, and a green (G) pixel; a luminance calculator, coupled to receive an input block of the pixels from the input buffer, the input block including a plurality of green pixels and at least one blue pixel and at least one red pixel in the Bayer pattern, the luminance calculator generating from the green, red, and blue pixels in the input block a luminance pixel for a pixel location within the input block; a luminance buffer for storing a plurality of luminance pixels generated by the luminance calculator including a luminance block of luminance pixels that has at least some pixel locations that correspond to pixel locations within the input block; and a chrominance calculator, coupled to both the input buffer and to the luminance buffer, receiving at least two red pixels and at least two blue pixels within the input block, and receiving the luminance block of luminance pixels from the luminance buffer, the chrominance calculator calculating a first chrominance value from an average of the at least two blue pixels and from the luminance block of luminance pixels and a second chrominance value from an average of the at least two red pixels and from the luminance block of luminance pixels, whereby luminance and chrominance values are calculated directly from the red, green, and blue pixels in the Bayer pattern.