Patent ID: 7009617

Claim:
An on-screen display device for displaying desired characters on a display, character data of one character being composed of R bits (R is an integer that is equal to or larger than 2), and the character data comprising character codes that indicate types of the characters, or attribute codes that indicate modification display of the respective characters and character codes that indicate types of the characters, including: a video RAM that holds the character data of the desired characters that are to be displayed on the display; a display character setting unit for writing the character data at predetermined positions in the video RAM; a first buffer that reads r bits (1≦r<R) of respective m pieces (2≦m≦M) of the character data selected from among M pieces (2≦M) of the character data corresponding to characters that are displayed on one line, from the video RAM at one-time access, and stores the read data; a second buffer that stores remaining (R−r) bits of the respective m pieces of the character data; a character generator ROM for creating font data corresponding to the character codes included in the character data that are outputted from the first and second buffers; and a display control unit for reading the font data from the character generator ROM and generating a desired on-screen output signal on the basis of the font data.