1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of compensation for video signals, and more particularly, to a system and method for automatically tuning video signals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a variety of personal computer systems, such as Windows PCs, SUN workstations, Apple Computer, the image source of the analog color video signal, in general use, is connected in the indoor environment within no more than 2 meters, and hence, the attenuation and delay problems would not be found.
However, under special requirements and/or securities concerned, such as the host server must be kept in the computer room and let all users to use the terminal in the remote site which is far away from it (10 to 300 meters). In this application, a transmission line with a number of conductors, such as CAT5 cable (its first pair line to third pair line having the differential signals of RGB video signals respectively), is used to transmit the signal with differential signals to the displayer at remote receiving site. When video signals were transmitted via a cable over 300 meters to the displayer at remote receiving site, the RGB video signals usually become distorted and delayed. This is induced by the low-pass frequency characteristics of individual conductors which were used to transmit video signals and there is a little difference in electrical properties and length. This makes the displayer at the remote receiving site show the results, such as color offset, trailing smear and image ambiguous.
The signal attenuation is caused by the frequency domain characteristics of the cable and it is a non-linear distortion. The cable is essentially a kind of low-pass material on frequency domain. The high-frequency harmonics of the video signal will be lost which was caused from attenuation of cable, such as the harmonic components on rising edge of pulse will get mitigation or loss.
The signal time delay is resulted from the time domain characteristics of the cable. Because there are differences on the length and the material of the conductors, and it causes the time delay as the signal transmitted to the remote receiving site, and shows RGB signals arriving at the displayer at different time. The extent of the differences will become serious as the cable getting longer.
For these two major problems mentioned above, in the prior art, the receiving site requires user to manually adjust, or use keyboard to adjust the system for the intensity of the amplitude, equalization and propagation delay in order to obtain just a slight improvement. However, the effect of the long-distance cable still has room for improvement.
Many prior arts are made and related only for the compensation of the signal time delay. For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 7,456,696, proposes a signal delay compensation circuit. The variable delay line circuit, the phase detector and the controller are used at the receiving site of cable for signal compensation. The oscillator generates clock signal at the transmitting site of cable, and the multiplexer sends one of the analog signal or oscillator signal to the transmitting line. The analog signal is selected in normal usage, and the oscillator signal is transmitted on the cable during the testing process. The disadvantage of this patent is that two delay lines are required for each path, and it makes the double cost of the construction. Moreover, it is lacking of the control and the adaptation for the low-pass characteristics of longer or shorter cable.
For another example, the U.S. Pat. No. 7,277,104, provides a device for reducing and judging the delay among the color video signals transmitted on several different video cables. On the remote receiving unit, each delay detection circuit includes the pulse separation detection circuit and the phase detection circuit to calculate the delay amount. For the delay compensation testing, the normal video transmission need to be interrupted, and the detecting signals for the delay and phase are included to determine the delay compensation value.
Therefore, in the prior art, some of them need to be manually adjusted one by one, others have higher cost and lacking of the adaptability for the longer cable or shorter cable, or some of them break the video signal transmission by the testing process and cannot be used in high definition video.
In view of the drawbacks mentioned with the prior art of video signal tuning, there is a continuous need to develop a new and improved system for automatically tuning video signals that overcomes the shortages associated with the prior art of video signal tuning. The advantages of the present invention are that it can solve the problems mentioned above.
In accordance with the present invention, the system and method for automatically tuning video signals substantially obviate one or more of the problems resulted from the limitations and disadvantages of the prior arts mentioned in the background.
The embodiments of the present invention provide a feedback circuit to be used for compensating the signal distortion in frequency domain and the signal delay in time domain. The attenuation and the delay occur on the paths that signals pass by, and hence, the present invention is related to the system and method for correcting the signal distortion during the transmitting process. Herein, the attenuation in frequency domain can be processed by selecting and amplifying the attenuated frequency to retrieve the signals which were sent out from the transmitting site. The time delay among several signals can be processed by delaying the leading signal to meet the lagging signal and make all the signals synchronously.
The present invention discloses a system for automatically tuning video signals. The system includes a transmitter module and a receiver module. The transmitter module sends a first set of video signals in a first mode period, and sends a second set of video signals in a second mode period. The receiver module receives and digitalizes the first set of analog video signals into digital signals, comparing the digital signals with a set of predetermined signals and then calculate a plurality of equalizing gains for a differential receiver to equalize and amplify a plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals, detecting the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals to calculate a plurality of delay values for a delayer to feed back and adjust the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals, and sends a finish command to the transmitter module. Herein, the transmitter module changes from the first mode period to the second mode period after receiving the command, and then the receiver module will receive the second set of video signals. After that, the differential receiver equalizes and amplifies a plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of equalizing gains, and adjusts the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of delay values.
The present invention provides a method for automatically tuning video signals. The method includes sending a first set of video signals by a transmitter module in a first mode period and sending a second set of video signals by the transmitter module in a second mode period; receiving and digitalizing the first set of video signals into digital signals by a receiver module and comparing the digital signals with a set of predetermined signals to calculate a plurality of equalizing gains; equalizing and amplifying a plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals by a differential receiver according to the plurality of equalizing gains; detecting the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals by the receiver module to calculate a plurality of delay values; feeding back and adjusting the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals by a delayer; and sending a finish command by the receiver module to the transmitter module. Herein, the transmitter module changes from the first mode period to the second mode period after receiving the command, and then the receiver module receives the second set of video signals. Herein, the differential receiver equalizes and amplifies a plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of equalizing gains, and adjusts the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of delay values.
The present invention discloses a receiver module for automatically tuning video signal system. The receiver module includes a detecting controller and a microprocessor. The detecting controller receives a first set of video signals from a differential receiver, digitalizing the first set of video signals into digital signals, comparing the digital signals with a set of predetermined signal to calculate a plurality of equalizing gains, and detects the delay extents of a plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals to calculate a plurality of delay values. The microprocessor receives the plurality of equalizing gains, controlling the differential receiver to equalize and amplify the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals according to the plurality of equalizing gains, receiving the plurality of delay values, controlling a delayer to feed back and adjust the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals from the differential receiver according to the plurality of delay values, and sends a finish command to a transmitter module.
The present invention provides a receiving method for automatically tuning video signal system. The receiving method includes receiving a first set of video signals from a differential receiver and digitalizing the first set of video signals into digital signals by a detecting controller, comparing the digital signals with a set of predetermined signals to calculate a plurality of equalizing gains, detecting the delay extents of a plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals to calculate a plurality of delay values; and receiving the plurality of equalizing gains by a microprocessor, controlling the differential receiver to equalize and amplify the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals according to the plurality of equalizing gains, receiving the plurality of delay values, controlling a delayer to feed back and adjust the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals from the differential receiver according to the plurality of delay values, and sending a finish command.
The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. In the drawings:
Some embodiments of the present invention will now be described in greater detail. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the present invention can be practiced in a wide range of other embodiments besides those explicitly described, and the scope of the present invention is expressly not limited except as specified in the accompanying claims.
Moreover, some irrelevant details are not drawn in order to make the illustrations concise and to provide a clear description for easily understanding the present invention.
The present invention provides a method for automatically tuning the related delays of the video signals on the transmitting cable at a receiver to make the delays of the primary signals, such as RGB video signals will be fully equal to each other. Referring to
The preferred embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide the compensation for the signal attenuation and delay through a set of feedback circuits, providing circuits and methods used to compensate the signal distortion in the frequency domain and time domain on the transmitting cable at the receiving site, and calculate equalizing gains and the parameters setting for the delayer to improve the signal quality at the receiver site of the transmitting cable. As the testing oscillator signals arriving, the receiving site adjusts the compensation for frequency domain first, so that the front-edge of the signal can be definitely identified by higher frequency components. In practical uses, replacing square waves with sine waves in testing oscillator signal, the influence caused by the low-pass characteristic of the transmitting cable can be avoided. Because using square testing oscillator signal to tune the parameters will make the high frequency be excessively amplified by the receiver controller and this leads to serious signal distortion. Conversely, using sine wave testing oscillator signal can avoid the low-pass essence of the transmitting cable, and get more precise parameters for equalizing gains.
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Referring to (a) of
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In the embodiments of the present invention, the detecting controller 244 can calculate and analyze the testing signals with the same amount of attenuation and delay of the video signals, and dynamically adjust the equalizer, gain and delayer. Herein, the compensation for frequency attenuation is to amplify the attenuated harmonic waves to retrieve the signals to original status as those shown on (a) to (b) of
Referring to
A differential driver 120 receives the first set of video signals in the first mode period and the second set of video signals in the second mode period. The differential driver 120 sends the first set of video signals in differential type and the second set of video signals in differential type by a signal path 18. Herein, the differential driver 120 also receives a synchronous signal from the VGA card by a signal path 14. A first connector 130 receives the signals from the differential driver 120, receiving/transmitting the control signals of mouse(s)/keyboard(s) via a signal path 20 and a first transceiver 140, and sends the control signals by a transmitting cable. In the present embodiment, the first connector 130 includes an RJ-45 connector; the first transceiver 140 includes an RS485 transceiver; and the transmitting cable includes a CAT5 cable.
A differential receiver 220 receives the signals from the differential driver 120 through the first connector 130, the transmitting cable and a second connector 210, and sends the first set of video signals in single-end type and the second set of video signals in single-end type by a signal path 22. Herein, the second connector 210 receives/transmits the control signals of mouse(s)/keyboard(s) by the signal path 20 and a second transceiver 250. The second connector 210 includes an RJ-45 connector and the second transceiver 250 includes an RS485 transceiver.
A receiver module 240 receives the first set of video signals from the differential receiver 220 in the first mode period, sampling and digitalizing the first set of video signals to digital signals, compares the digital signals with a set of predetermined signals to calculate a plurality of equalizing gains for providing the differential receiver 220 by a signal path 24 to equalize and amplify a plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals, such as RGB primary signals and the signals making 3D video. The receiver module 240 also detects the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signal to calculate a plurality of delay values for providing to a delayer 230 by a signal path 26 to feed back and adjust the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the first set of video signals. After finishing the above-mentioned feedback and adjusting process, the receiver module 240 sends a finish command to the transmitter module 110. Herein, the transmitter module 110 changes to the second mode period from the first mode period, and sends the second set of video signals after receiving the finish command. The receiver module 240 receives the second set of video signals and sends to a displayer. Herein, the differential receiver 220 equalizes and amplifies a plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of equalizing gains, and adjusts the delay extents of the plurality of primary signals of the second set of video signals according to the plurality of delay values. The displayer also receives the synchronous signals from the differential receiver 220. In the present embodiment, the output of the delayer 230 is fed back to the receiver module 240 to be determined to whether being further adjusted by the delayer 230 or being used directly, so that the output of the delayer 230 can be adapted to the length characteristic of the transmitting cable to prevent the video signals from attenuation and distortion. For example, within 2-3 meters, the output of the delayer 230 could not need to be adjusted the delay except being equalized only to have a better quality. Judging by the feedback signal, the receiver module 240 will calculate the best gains and delay values for providing the differential receiver 220 and the delayer 230 if the feedback signal needs to be further adjusted. The final signals received by the receiver module 240 is like the original signals sent by the transmitter module 110.
Referring to
Referring to
In the present embodiment, the outputs of the delayer 230, such as RR, GR and BR, are fed back to the receiver module 240 by a feedback path 28 to be determined to whether being further adjusted by the delayer 230 or being used directly, so that the outputs of the delayer 230 can adapt the length characteristic of the transmitting cable to prevent the video signal from attenuation and distortion. For example, within 2-3 meters, the output of the delayer 230 could be unnecessary to be further adjusted except being equalized only to have a better quality. Judging with the feedback signal, the detecting controller 244 and the second microprocessor 242 will calculate the optimized gains and delay values again for providing to the differential receiver 220 and the delayer 230 if the feedback signal needs to be further adjusted. The final signals received by the receiver module 240 will be like the original signals which were sent from the transmitter module 110.
Herein, according to the present invention, the inventor would like to stress the first mode period (also called auto-tuning stage or signal-tuning mode) starts from receiving an initial signal, such as the statuses of system power-on, transmission reconnection and/or system rebooted, etc., and stops at receiving a finish command; and the second mode period (also called video signal stage or video-transmitting mode) follows the first mode period till the statuses of system power-off and/or transmission disconnection. That is, once the first mode period is changed to the second mode period, the signal-tuning processes in the first mode period will not be executed anymore during the second mode period until the transmitting cable being reconnected and/or the system being rebooted. Whereby, the processes in the second mode will not be interrupted and the transmission rate for video signals will be increased.
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made without departing from what is intended to be limited solely by the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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100116914 | May 2011 | TW | national |