Patent ID: 8624999

Claim:
An imaging apparatus, comprising: an optical system configured to form an optical image of an object; an imaging element configured to image the optical image and produce image data at a frame frequency (Ffs) out of a frame frequency (Ffr) of NTSC system; a frame memory configured to store the image data; and a controller configured to progressively write the image data in the frame memory and interlacedly read out the image data from the frame memory at the frame frequency (Ffr) of NTSC system, wherein the frame memory is divided into at least three areas, and each of the at least three areas of the frame memory comprises a writing-in area and a read-out area, and wherein the controller sequentially switches between operating the writing-in and read-out areas of the at least three areas of the frame memory and progressively writes one frame of image data in each area and interlacedly reads out one frame of image data from each area in sequence, by determining whether writing one frame of image data in an area after an area the controller reads out next is completed when finishing reading out one frame of image data from an area the controller reads out next, and reading out image data from the area the controller reads out next when the writing is not completed, or skipping the area the controller reads out next and starting a read-out of image data from the area after an area the controller reads out next when the writing is completed.