Trick play schemes for advanced television recording on digital VCR

In this paper, three technical elements that together implement trick-play modes of digital VCR for ATV recording are proposed: a data arrangement format, a trick-play tracking algorithm, and a coefficient extraction algorithm. First, an efficient tape format is carefully designed for fast forward and reverse playbacks at various speeds. It can accommodate two pickup head configurations. The success of this format relies on a reliable trick-play tracking scheme. This tracking scheme is capable of automatically driving the pickup heads to trace the correct trajectory in typically less than 350 ms. Lastly, an adaptive coefficient extraction algorithm is presented, which produces fairly good quality trick-play images under severe bit limitation. A related issue is to choose a balanced bit budget that provides a good comprise between picture spatial quality and temporal quality. Simulations at a video recording bit rate of 25 Mb/s have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed system.