Apparatus for encoding an image signal having a still object

摘要

An apparatus for encoding a digital video signal of an image based on a still object-oriented coding technique wherein the image signal is divided into a number of blocks of an identical size and pixels lying outside of the object being masked with a zero value comprises a subblock formatter for subdividing each of the blocks into 4N subblocks; 4N encoders, each of said encoders for encoding each one of the 4N subblocks to produce a block of encoded data, respectively; 4N edge detectors, each of the edge detectors for detecting a sub-object edge in said each subblock to produce an edge detection signal and for determining a pattern of the detected edge to produce an edge pattern identification signal; an interleaving block for interleaving each of the scanned data from each of said encoder to produce a stream of scanned data; and a variable length coder for coding a stream of interleaved scanned data to produce a variable length coded signal.