High-visibility focus-aid signal for ultra-high-definition television cameras using maximum value filter with sparse noise reduction

• Published in: 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB) pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Funatsu, Ryohei, Masuda, Hiroyasu, Nakamura, Shinichiro, Yamashita, Takayuki, Shimamoto, Hiroshi
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-06-2016
• Subjects: Broadband; Broadcasting; Camera; Cameras; Circuits; Focus-aid; Focusing; HDTV; Maximum Value Filter; Multimedia; Noise reduction; Production; Signal generation; Signal resolution; Television; UHDTV; Viewfinder
• ISSN: 2155-5052
• DOI: 10.1109/BMSB.2016.7521927

The demand for ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) content is increasing rapidly every year owing to the prevalence of 4K TV sets and the launch of 4K/8K broadcasting services. In UHDTV content production, the difficulty of focusing high-resolution cameras has become one of the most critical issues. We previously proposed a focus-aid signal for use in 8K UHDTV cameras, which facilitated precise focusing using a low-resolution viewfinder. However, the signal visibility degraded when an image included sparse noise. In this paper, we describe an effective sparse noise reduction technique based on an improved maximum value filter in the focus-aid signal generation circuit. The improved focus-aid signal technique has also been applied in focus-assistance units in 4K cameras and UHDTV content production.