A single chip set-top box system and method is provided. The system comprises, for example, a transceiver, an audio/video decoder, a CPU, peripherals, DAVIC MAC and a graphics processor. The transceiver receives a digitally modulated compressed audio/video signal, and the audio/video decoder receives the compressed audio/video signal from the transceiver and decompresses the compressed audio/video signal. The graphics processor blends the decompressed audio/video signal with graphics to generate a blended video image with audio.

A method and a device for displaying images on a digital media frame is disclosed. In one embodiment, the device includes a memory, a processing unit, a display, an interface circuit, and a display circuit. The interface circuit has at least one receiving port capable of identifying various types of networking protocols that are used to transfer the image data. The processing unit attaches auxiliary information to each image before images are stored in a memory. The display circuit displays images according to the image data received. The digital media frame further contains a user input device, which allows a user to alter the image display sequence. The user input device is an input device other than a keyboard or a cursor control device.

Systems and methods for operating cameras are described. An image signal received from an image sensor can be processed as a plurality of video signals representative of the image signal. An encoder may combine baseband and digital video signals in an output signal for transmission over a cable. The video signals may include substantially isochronous baseband and digital video signals. The baseband video signal can comprise a standard definition analog video signal and the digital video signal may be frequency modulated before combining with the baseband video signal and/or transmitting wirelessly. The digital video signal may be a compressed high definition digital video signal. A decoder demodulates an upstream signal to obtain a control signal for controlling the position and orientation of the camera and content of the baseband and digital video signals.

A video encoding and decoding system that implements an adaptive transfer function method internally within the codec for signal representation. A focus dynamic range representing an effective dynamic range of the human visual system may be dynamically determined for each scene, sequence, frame, or region of input video. The video data may be cropped and quantized into the bit depth of the codec according to a transfer function for encoding within the codec. The transfer function may be the same as the transfer function of the input video data or may be a transfer function internal to the codec. The encoded video data may be decoded and expanded into the dynamic range of display(s). The adaptive transfer function method enables the codec to use fewer bits for the internal representation of the signal while still representing the entire dynamic range of the signal in output.

A graphics display system integrated circuit is used in a set-top box for controlling a television display. The graphics display system processes analog video input, digital video input, and graphics input. The system incorporates a unified memory architecture that is shared by the graphics system, a CPU, and other peripherals. The unified memory architecture uses real time scheduling to service tasks. Critical instant analysis is used to find a schedule for memory usage that does not affect memory requirements of real time tasks while at the same time servicing non-real-time tasks as needed.

A wireless display system and method decompresses a compressed video stream, such as obtained from suitable video sources such as a cable modem, DVD player or other suitable source, to produce a decompressed video stream locally. The decompressed video stream, such as frames, is stored in a local frame buffer, such as an on-chip frame buffer, system memory, or any other suitable memory. The system and method then recompresses the stored frames and wirelessly transmits the recompressed frames using a short range wireless transmitter, such as a radio frequency-based short range transmitter, an infrared short range wireless transmitter, or any other suitable short range transmitter that may provide, for example, local area networking. Accordingly, full image frames are decompressed and then recompressed, such as via a software data encoder as executed by a central processing unit, or via a hardware data encoder, such as an MPEGII or MPEG4 encoder, or any other suitable encoder, and then modulated by a short range wireless transceiver and sent to a short range wireless unit having a local display.

A video encoding and decoding system that implements an adaptive transfer function method internally within the codec for signal representation. A focus dynamic range representing an effective dynamic range of the human visual system may be dynamically determined for each scene, sequence, frame, or region of input video. The video data may be cropped and quantized into the bit depth of the codec according to a transfer function for encoding within the codec. The transfer function may be the same as the transfer function of the input video data or may be a transfer function internal to the codec. The encoded video data may be decoded and expanded into the dynamic range of display(s). The adaptive transfer function method enables the codec to use fewer bits for the internal representation of the signal while still representing the entire dynamic range of the signal in output.

Display with an appropriate luminance dynamic range is realizable on a receiving side. A gamma curve is applied to input video data having a level range from 0% to 100%*N (N: a number larger than 1) to obtain transmission video data. This transmission video data is transmitted together with auxiliary information used for converting a high-luminance level on the receiving side. A high-level side level range of the transmission video data is converted on the receiving side such that a maximum level becomes a predetermined level based on the auxiliary information received together with the transmission video data.

Display with an appropriate luminance dynamic range is realizable on a receiving side. A gamma curve is applied to input video data having a level range from 0% to 100%*N (N: a number larger than 1) to obtain transmission video data. This transmission video data is transmitted together with auxiliary information used for converting a high-luminance level on the receiving side. A high-level side level range of the transmission video data is converted on the receiving side such that a maximum level becomes a predetermined level based on auxiliary information received together with the transmission video data.