Patent ID: 7065543

Claim:
An apparatus for performing a discrete cosine transform (DCT) on a video signal, wherein the video signal includes a plurality of N×M image blocks, N and M being a positive integer, the apparatus comprising: input means for receiving the video signal in a block by block basis; discrete cosine transform (DCT) means for receiving each image data block from the input means and conducting a discrete cosine transform/inverse discrete cosine transform (DCT/IDCT) operation on the received image data block to generate a transformed image data block containing N×M pixel values, wherein N and M are both positive integers and at least one of N and M is greater than 1; zero input detect means for determining whether pixel values of a current image data block are all “0” and generating a detection signal in order to bypass the discrete cosine transform/inverse discrete cosine transform (DCT/IDCT) performing on the current image block; and output means for outputting the transformed image data block as a transformed video signal.