Patent ID: 7088777

Claim:
A process for encoding a video signal, comprising the following process actions: inputting a full color image frame in YUV format, wherein Y represents the luminance information of the image, and UV represents the color information of the image; dividing said full color image frame into a Y component image and a UV component image; dividing said Y component image into blocks of a prescribed size and encoding said blocks of said Y component image using bi-level video coding, resulting in an encoded y component image; dividing said UV component image into blocks of a prescribed size and computing an average UV value for each block; determining the UV combinations, wherein said UV combination is the U and V value for the block, for all blocks of said UV component image; selecting a prescribed number of the most typical UV combinations and the probability of each UV combination; constructing a lookup table for each of the prescribed number of the most typical UV combinations and associated probabilities; classifying all blocks of said UV component image to one of said typical UV combinations, and representing each block of said UV component image by an index to said lookup table of typical UV combinations; and encoding said lookup table and the index for each block of said UV component image, resulting in an encoded UV component image.