Patent ID: 8593691

Claim:
An apparatus for achieving higher bit depth in a tagged image data path, comprising: a source of a stream of N-bit digital image data words; a splitter to separate the stream of N-bit digital image data words into a M-bit video word stream and an N-M bit tag word stream; a first inverter, accepting the M-bit video word stream, to invert a sense of a word of the M-bit video word stream whenever a corresponding tag word is odd, thereby generating a modified video word stream; a second inverter to invert a sense of a word of the modified video word stream whenever a corresponding tag word is odd; and a halftoner, operatively connected to the inverter, to generate a halftoned data stream from the modified video word stream; said halftoner selecting from one of 2 N-M halftone patterns based on values of the tag word stream.