Patent ID: 8115828

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: integrating means for integrating an input image signal over an interval of time equal to or longer than one horizontal period, the input image signal being a video signal that can possibly contain a flicker component with a variation pattern synchronized with a field period or a frame period; normalizing means for normalizing an integrated value obtained by the integrating means, or a difference value in the integrated value obtained by the integrating means between adjacent fields or frames; extracting means for extracting a spectrum of the integrated value or the difference value normalized by the normalizing means; estimating means for estimating a flicker component on a field-by-field basis or a frame-by-frame basis from the spectrum extracted by the extracting means; detecting means for detecting a deviation of the latest flicker component, from the latest flicker component estimated by the estimating means and one or more flicker components estimated in the past by the estimating means; correcting means for correcting the latest flicker component on the basis of the deviation of the flicker component detected by the detecting means; and computing means for computing a corrected flicker component and the input image signal so as to cancel out the flicker component corrected by the correcting means, wherein: the estimating means estimates the flicker component in a complex plane; and the detecting means detects, as the deviation of the latest flicker component, a deviation from an origin in the complex plane which is represented by an average value in an imaginary-axis direction and an average value in a real-axis direction of flicker components of individual fields, or flicker components of individual frames within the variation pattern synchronized with the field period or the frame period.