METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ENCODING IMAGES AND INFORMATION MEDIUM FOR STORING IMAGES Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: computer engineering, in particular, for encoding of input signal by running prediction encoding, discrete cosine transform, data sampling with constant quantization step, non-uniform encoding (with alternating length). SUBSTANCE: method involves encoding of first data group and subsequent detection (assigning) code length for allocation (setting) for each frame or each image group using data length in each given time interval, for example, for duration of each frame in first encoded data group and total length of data available for encoding of input video signal in each given time interval using assigned number of codes for generation of second group of encoded data. This results in possibility of alternating length encoding, when encoding rate alters in any given time interval. So, even if sequence of images (frames) for complex picture is given, there is not way to ensure large quantization step for these images as in state-of-the-art devices. This provides possibility to generate uniform image of high quality in various cases. In addition since second group of encoded data has alternating rate, then if such data are recorded onto information medium, a restricted size of buffer memory may be used with greater efficiency and information storage duration may be extended. Finally, image data of high quality and uniformity in all possible cases can be read from medium which stores this image. EFFECT: increased image quality, increased efficiency of buffer memory usage. 28 cl, 12 dwg