This application claims the benefit, under 35 U.S.C. 11 g, of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0082916, filed on Aug. 30, 2006, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mapping method and a video system, and more particularly, to a mapping method and a video system for mapping pixel data of pixels included in the same pixel group to the same bank a a memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a video system, pixel data is stored in a memory. To be stored, the pixel data is encoded (e.g., compressed) by an MPEG encoder and mapped to an address in the memory, A MPEG decoder reads and decodes the pixel data stored in the memory. A picture is reconstructed using the decoded pixel data.
An aspect of the present invention provides a method for mapping pixel data included in the same pixel group (e.g., including a plurality of macroblocks) to the same bank address of a memory.
The present invention also provides a video system for mapping pixel data included in the same pixel group to the same bank address of a memory.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for mapping the position of pixel data of a picture to an address of a memory, which comprises a pixel group dividing operation and an address mapping operation. The pixel group dividing operation divides the pixel data of the picture into at least one pixel group. The address mapping operation maps pixel data included in the same pixel group to the same bank address of the memory.
The address mapping operation may map pixel data included in the same pixel group to the same bank address and the same row address of the memory. The address mapping operation may map pixel data included in neighboring pixel groups to different bank addresses of the memory.
The size of the pixel group may be greater than the size of a macroblock of the picture. The horizontal length or the vertical length of the pixel group may be 2N (N is an integer that is not negative) times the horizontal length or the vertical length of the macroblock of the picture. The size of the pixel data of each pixel group may be smaller than or equal to a page (row) size of the memory. The size of the pixel data of the pixel group may be substantially equal to the page size of the memory.
The mapping method may be used in standardized video processing applications using two-dimensional block transmission type access to a memory. For example, the mapping method may be implemented as a part of a CODEC (encoding/decoding) system frequently using macroblock-based or block-based memory access, such as an H.264, MPEG, DivX or VC-1 compression system. The address mapping operation may map pixel data of a decoded/encoded picture to an address of the memory.
The mapping method may further comprise an arbitrating/controlling operation mapping the pixel data in the address of the memory to which the pixel data is mapped.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a video system comprising a memory and an address mapper. The memory stores pixel data of the pixels of a picture. The address mapper maps (the position of) the pixel data of the pixels of the picture to an address of the memory. The address mapper divides the pixels of the picture into at least one pixel group and maps pixel data of the pixels included in the same pixel group to the same bank address of the memory.
The video system may further comprise a look-up table. The look-up table may store information indicating a mapped region of the picture. Different mapping methods can be applied to different memory regions corresponding to contents of the look-up table according to the contents of the look-up table. For example, different mapped regions of the picture may have pixel groups having different dimensions and/or macroblocks having different dimensions. The information stored in the look-up table may include the start address and the end address of a region to which the pixel data is mapped or the start address and the size of the region. The look-up table may store the size of the mapped picture, the type of the picture a macroblock size or a page size of the memory. The look-up table may store the information before the address mapper performs the mapping operation. The look-up table may store the information in a register setting manner.
The present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which exemplary embodiments of the invention are shown. The invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of the invention to those skilled in the art. Throughout the drawings, like reference numerals refer to like elements.
The above and other features of the present invention will become more apparent to persons skilled in the art by describing in detail exemplary embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which:
4B and 4C illustrate methods of mapping pixel data of pixels included in neighboring pixel groups to different bank addresses of a memory according to embodiments of the present invention;
An MPEG decoder of the video system of
Accordingly, the MPEG decoder of the video system of
Moreover, in a shared memory system in which a plurality of blocks share a single memory access, it is required that a specific row of a specific bank, which has been opened by a block read, is closed through a precharging operation and a row storing macroblock data is opened through an activating operation. Accordingly, subsequent block reads to access rows after the first access to the macroblock, require precharging and activating operations again. Thus, when the aforementioned mapping method of
Referring to
The address mapping operation can map the pixel data of pixels included in the same pixel group (for example, the pixel group 11) to the same memory row address (for example, R11) of the same memory bank address (for example, BANK1).
The address mapping operation can map pixel data included in neighboring pixel groups (For example, pixel groups 11 and 21) to different bank addresses (for example, BANK1 and BANK2 respectively) of the memory MEM. For example, the pixel group 23 is mapped to the bank address BANK2 and the pixel groups 31, 32, 13 and 34 (all adjacent to the pixel group 23) are mapped to the bank addresses BANK3 and BANK1.
Furthermore, the size PS_PDG (e.g., measured in bytes) of the pixel data in each of the pixel groups 11 through 36 can be smaller than or equal to a page size PS_MEM of the memory. Alternatively, the size PS_PDG of the pixel data of each of the pixel groups 11 through 36 can be substantially equal to the page size PS_MEM of the memory.
The mapping method according to embodiments of the present invention can be used in a video CODEC such as an MPEG system or H.264 system. The mapping method may further include a decoding operation. The decoding operation MPEG-decodes or H.264-decodes the picture PIC. In this case, the address mapping operation can map pixel data of the decoded picture to the memory MEM.
The mapping method according to embodiments of the present invention can further include an arbitrating/controlling operation that stores pixel data in an address of the memory MEM to which the pixel data is mapped.
The video system 500 includes a memory 510 and a first address mapper 540. The memory 510 stores pixel data of a picture. The first address mapper 540 maps the position of the pixel data of the picture to an address of the memory 510. The first address mapper 540 divides the pixel data of the picture into at least one pixel group and maps pixel data included in the same pixel group to the same bank address of the memory 510. The first address mapper 540 can map pixel data included in the same pixel group to the same memory row address of the same bank of memory.
The first address mapper 540 can map pixel data included in neighboring pixel groups to different bank addresses of the memory 510. The size of each pixel group can be greater than the size of a macroblock of the picture. The horizontal length or the vertical length of each pixel group can be 2N times the horizontal length or the vertical length of the macroblock of the picture. Furthermore, the size of the pixel data of each pixel group can be smaller than or equal to a page size of the memory. The size of the pixel data of each pixel group can be substantially equal to the page size of the memory.
The technical spirit of the address mapping operation performed by the first address mapper 540 of the video system 500 according to the first system embodiment of the present invention is identical to that of the aforementioned address mapping operation of the mapping method of
The video system 500 can further include a second address mapper (unmapper) 560. The second address mapper 560 re-maps (unmaps) pixel data stored in the memory 510 and transfers the re-mapped (unmapped) pixel data to the video scaler 550. The re-mapping (unmapping) operation of the second address mapper 560 is the opposite (the reverse) of the mapping operation of the first address mapper 540 so that detailed explanation thereof is omitted.
The video system 500 can further include a look-up table 580 that stores information indicating the mapped regions of the picture. The information stored in the look-up table 580 can include the start address and the end address of each region to which pixel data is mapped. Furthermore, the information stored in the look-up table 580 can include the start address and the size of each region to which the pixel data is mapped. Accordingly, the second address mapper 560 can unmap only the regions of the picture that require address unmapping.
The look-up table 580 can store the size of a mapped picture, the type of the mapped picture, the macroblock size and the page size of the memory. The second address mapper 560 can perform an address unmapping operation using the information stored in the look-up table 580. The look-up table 580 can store the information just before the second address mapper 560 carries out the address unmapping operation. Accordingly, the second address mapper 560 can dynamically perform the address unmapping operation. The look-up table 580 can store the information in a register setting manner.
The video system 500 according to the first system embodiment of the present invention can further include a video encoder/decoder 530 for video encoding and decoding the pixel data stored in the memory 510. The video encoder/decoder 530 decodes a picture and transfers the decoded picture to the second address mapper (unmapper) 560. The video system 500 can be an MPEG system or an H.264 system. The video system 500 can alternatively an H.264 video encoder/decoder (not shown) that decodes a picture and transfers the decoded picture to the second address mapper (unmapper) 560. The video system 500 can further include an arbitrator/controller 520 that stores pixel data output from the second address mapper (unmapper) 560 into mapped addresses of the memory 510. The memory 510 can be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM).
Only the elements of the video system 600 and the video system 700 other than elements the same as those of the video system 500 according to the first system embodiment of the present invention will now be explained in detail.
Referring to
Referring to
As described above, the mapping method and the video system according to embodiments of the present invention can continuously access the data of macroblocks by mapping pixel data of pixels included within the same pixel group to the same bank address of a memory.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims.
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Entry |
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First Office Action issued in corresponding Chinese Appln. No. 200710147193.3 dated Jul. 6, 2010. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20080055328 A1 | Mar 2008 | US |