1
DEVICE FOR AND METHOD OF EDITING
INFORMATION
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for and a method of editing information in a so-called post production, and more particularly to an information editing technique for recording picture information on a recording medium with necessary additional information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, with the aid of the improved compressive coding technique, picture information such as a movie is compressed and recorded on a high density optical disk with necessary additional information. Generally, picture information is coded and recorded on a recording medium in the following manner. First, picture information of a movie or the like is coded by an encoder which compresses and encodes picture information to produce a coded picture signal. Specifically, the encoder detects motion component of the original pictures, eliminates unnecessary components and encodes the original pictures so that the coded picture signal has sufficiently less information quantity than that of the original pictures. Then, the coded signal is formatted according to a predetermined format, and then additional information is added to the formatted signal. Thereafter, the picture signal thus obtained is recorded on a master disk.
Picture information is normally encoded and then recorded as a plurality of programs, which are picture information having a predetermined length. Namely, a plurality of programs are successively subjected to the high efficiency coding, and coded picture signals are obtained. Then, the coded signals corresponding to the programs are recorded. The time required for the high efficiency coding largely varies between different programs because the quantity of the moving component and/or edge component included in each programs differs from each other. On the other hand, the time required for recording the coded picture signal on the master disk does not vary so largely between different programs. This disables a smooth serial processing of coding and recording picture information on a recording medium.
In this view, there may be proposed a technique to add pseudo information to picture information to be recorded so that the coding rate becomes constant irrespective of the contents of picture information. However, this technique results in the deterioration of recording efficiency of the recording medium Namely, if pseudo information is added to true picture information and then recorded, the usage of the recording medium is inefficient. This goes counter to the trend of improving recording density of recording medium, and therefore it is not acceptable.
On the other hand, there may be proposed another technique in which coded picture information is temporarily stored in a storage unit so as to absorb the variation of the required coding time. However, according to this technique, the high efficiency coding of the picture information and recording the coded signal on the master disk are not performed in parallel. Therefore, either one of the encoder and the master disk recording device should wait for the finish of the other processing, thereby resulting in the inefficient usage of the editing device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a device for and a method of editing information with improved using efficiencies of the editing device and the recording medium.
2
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of editing information including the steps of: preparing a plurality of unit information each having a predetermined length and outputting the unit information 5 consecutively at a first rate; processing the unit information thus outputted in a parallel manner by a plurality of processing devices at a second rate different from the first rate, respectively; and detecting the processing device which is not performing the processing and permitting the processing device thus detected to perform the processing of a new unit information when the new unit information is outputted by the outputting step.
In accordance with the method, the unit information is outputted at the first rate, and then processed at the second rate by one of the plurality of processing device. When a
15 new unit information is outputted. the processing device being not in processing is detected and the detected processing device processes the new unit information. Therefore, even if the first rate is different from the second rate, the editing operation can be continued without termi
20 nating the consecutive output of the unit information.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a device for editing information including: a device for preparing a plurality of unit information each having a predetermined length and outputting the unit infor
25 mation consecutively at a first rate; a plurality of devices for processing the unit information thus outputted in a parallel manner with each other at a second rate different from the first rate, respectively; a device for selectively supplying the unit information outputted by said outputting device to one
3q of the processing device; and a device for detecting the processing device which is not performing the processing and permitting the supplying device to supply a new unit information to the processing device thus detected when said outputting device outputs the new unit information.
35 In accordance with the device thus configured, the outputting device outputs the unit information at the first rate, and the processing device processes the unit information at the second rate. The detecting device detects the processing device not in processing and permits the detected processing
40 device to process the new unit information. Namely, the detecting device usually monitors the operation of the processing devices and controls the parallel operation of them so that the new unit information is processed by the processing unit not being in operation. Therefore, even if the
45 first rate is different from the second rate, the processing of the unit information can be continued without terminating the consecutive output of the unit information.
According to still another aspect of the present Invention, there is provided a device for editing information including:
so a device for encoding a plurality of unit information each having a predetermined length and outputting the coded unit information consecutively at a first rate; a device for generating additional information to be added to the unit information; a plurality of editing devices for storing the unit
55 information encoded by the encoding device and processing the unit information stored and the additional information in a parallel manner with each other at a second rate different from the first rate, respectively; a device for selectively supplying the unit information outputted by said outputting
60 device to one of the editing device; and a device for detecting the editing device which is not performing the processing and permitting the supplying device to supply a new unit information to the editing device thus detected when said outputting device outputs the new unit informa
65 tion.
In accordance with the device thus configured, the outputting device outputs the coded unit information at the first
