1991 Volume 15 Issue 42 Pages 33-38
Various kinds of HDTV application have been developed since the international HDTV studio standard was established by the CCIR. In those applications, the demand for a still picture system is increasing. Program compatibility is important to promote the HDTV still picture system, otherwise a program produced by a particular system may not be played back on other systems. We studied user requirement in many aspects, such as the number of recordable pictures, access time, picture quality, etc., and adopted the three-disk system to maintain the maximum operation flexibility. In this system, video, audio, and control data are recorded on separate disks. The video data are recorded on a 130mm rewritable Magneto-Optical (MO) disk or a 120mm CD-ROM. The audio data are recorded on a Compact Disc (CD). The control data are recorded on a 3.5-inch Floppy Disk (FD). The system provides a layered structure for video data, by which a wide range of data can be treated, from a full band HDTV picture to a bit-reduced one. It also provides a lot of special effect functions, such as dissolve, scroll, wipe, and so on. A quick scene change (within 2 seconds) is available with bit-reduced data. The sequence of the pictures to be played back can easily be changed by altering the control data to another one. With these together, the system covers a wide range of user requirement.
