Patent ID: 7477789

Claim:
A video image capturing and displaying method for a web camera, comprising the steps of: capturing a video image consisting of a time series of image frames, each image frame comprising a plurality of sequential lines of pixels; compressing the captured video image with one of at least a first compressing mode and a second compressing mode for each sequential line as a basic compression unit; decompressing the compressed video image corresponding to the compressing mode; storing, in a first buffer, the decompressed video image which is not displayed in time; and displaying the video image based on the stored video image and the decompressed video image, wherein one of at least the first and the second compressing modes for each sequential line is selectively determined according to any one or the combination of the factors consisting of the remaining storage capacity of the first buffer for storing the decompressed video image, a data length of the compressed video image in the previous sequential line and a compression ratio in the previous sequential line.