Patent ID: 6999128

Claim:
A stillness judgment apparatus that determines whether or not a picture stands till on the basis of a picture signal of an interlaced scanning system, comprising: an inter-frame motion detection device that calculates a difference value between a pixel in a field preceding a current field and a pixel in a field succeeding the current field in the same coordinates as those of a pixel to be interpolated in the current field on the basis of said picture signal, and detects a presence or absence of motion between frames on the basis of said difference value; a continuity detection device that finds signs of difference values between pixels in the preceding field or the succeeding field and pixels adjacent thereto on an upper or lower side in the current field on the basis of said picture signal, and detects a presence or absence of a horizontal continuity of an inter-field vertical edge based upon a determination of whether or not said signs are the same continuously over not less than a predetermined number of pixels, in a horizontal direction, including the pixel in the same coordinates as those of said pixel to be interpolated; and a judgment device that judges that the picture stands still when said inter-frame motion detection device detects that there is no motion between frames and said continuity detection device detects that there is horizontal continuity of the inter-field vertical edge.