Frame rate conversion apparatus and frame rate conversion method

Abstract

At the time of dividing an input frame into multiple subframes and performing frame rate conversion, a frame rate conversion apparatus detects the degree of motion of each region composed of one or more pixels in the input frame, and determines a spatial frequency for each region in the multiple subframes according to the detected degree of motion of the region. The conversion apparatus then converts each region in the multiple subframes to the determined spatial frequency, divides the input frame into those subframes whose regions have been converted, and outputs the subframes.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a frame rate conversion apparatus and a frame rate conversion method for performing frame rate conversion of an input image.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Display devices are roughly divided into two categories, impulse type and hold type, in terms of their display characteristics. Impulse-type display devices as referred to herein are display devices that have a short light emission time in a single frame, as illustrated in FIG. 1A. On the other hand, hold-type display devices are display devices such as liquid crystal panels that hold display in a single frame almost constant, as illustrated in FIG. 1B.[0005]Examples of the impulse-type display devices include CRT (cathode ray tube) displays and field emission type displays. The impulse types have the characteristic of tending to cause flicker such as a screen that appears to be flashing because of repeated flashing of pi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017]The present invention provides an apparatus and a method that maintains the effect of reducing flicker, motion blurring, pseudo contours and image breakups.

Problems solved by technology

Because of a long pixel illumination time, the hold types have a problem in that a moving image causes motion blurring due to the characteristics of the hold types.

In other words, the problem that needs to be improved is reduced visual resolution of moving images.

The above method (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 9-325715), however, has a problem in that flicker occurs because display characteristics are closer to those of the impulse types where pixels repeat flashing.

With the above-described technique (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-351382), however, there is the problem of floating black levels whereby edge contrast in the vicinity of edges decreases, and the problem of the tailing of moving edges being noticeable.

A problem is that such a floating-black-level region, for example, an image-degraded region, increases in area as the filter factor increases.