CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of Japanese Priority Patent Application JP 2017-085730 filed Apr. 24, 2017, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present technology relates to a transmission apparatus, a transmission method, a reception apparatus, and a reception method, and more particularly to a transmission apparatus that transits moving image data at a high frame rate and the like. Background Art

In recent years, a camera that performs high frame rate imaging with a high-speed frame shutter is known. For example, a normal frame rate is 60 Hz, 50 Hz, or the like while the high frame rate is a frame rate that is several times, several tens of times, or further several hundreds of times as high as the normal frame rate.

In a case in which a high frame rate service is performed, it is considered that moving image data captured by a camera with a high-speed frame shutter is converted into and transmitted as a moving image sequence at a lower frequency than that of the moving image data. However, the image captured with the high-speed frame shutter has an effect that moving blur is improved and image quality with high sharpness is realized while the image has an element that leads to a problem in a traditional frame interpolation technology in terms of the image quality on a reception and reproduction side that displays the moving image sequence at a lower frame rate than the distributed high frame rate.

In the frame interpolation using an image with high sharpness captured with the high-speed frame shutter, there is a large difference between a case in which motion vector search is adapted and in a case in which the motion vector search is not adapted. Therefore, the difference between both the cases is displayed as significant degradation in the image quality. High load computation is necessary to improve accuracy of the motion vector search at the time of the frame interpolation, which affects receiver cost.

The applicant previously proposed a technology of converting an image material captured with a high-speed frame shutter and causing a traditional receiver that performs decoding at a normal frame rate to display the image with predetermined or higher image quality (see PTL 1).

CITATION LIST

Patent Literature

PTL 1: International Publication No. 2015/076277

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

Technical Problem

It is desirable to satisfactorily transfer moving image data at a normal frame rate and a high frame rate.

Solution to Problem

According to an embodiment of the present technology, there is provided a transmission apparatus that performs processing of mixing, at a mixing rate for each frame, a frame of first video data with one or more peripheral frames of the first video data and obtains second video data at a first frame rate. The second video data includes frames corresponding to a second frame rate that is lower than the first frame rate, where the frames corresponding to the second frame rate being mixed with the peripheral frames. The transmission apparatus encodes the frames corresponding to the second frame rate to obtain a basic stream and encodes remaining frames of the second video data to obtain an extended stream. The transmission apparatus then inserts information about the mixing rate of corresponding frames into the basic stream and the extended stream in association with the respective frames, and transmits the basic stream and the extended stream into which the information about the mixing rate has been inserted.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, the basic stream and the extended stream have a Network Abstraction Layer (NAL) unit structure, and the transmission apparatus inserts a Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI) NAL unit with the information about the mixing rate into the basic stream and the extended stream. In an embodiment, the first frame rate is 120 Hz or 240 Hz, and the second frame rate is 60 Hz.

Information about the mixing rate, which is inserted into the basic stream and the extended stream, may include configuration information of a filter used to perform the mixing processing.

The information about the mixing rate may also include mixing refresh information indicating a number of frames until mixing refresh that does not use a temporally previous frame is performed.

The information about the mixing rate may also include refresh flag information indicating whether or not a respective frame is a target of the mixing refresh. The information about the mixing rate may also include head flag information indicating whether or not a respective frame corresponds to the second frame rate.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, at least the frame corresponding to the second frame rate (normal frame rate) in each frame that forms the second video data at the first frame rata (high frame rate) is mixed with the peripheral frames and is in a state in which an aperture ratio is raised, and the basic stream obtained by encoding the frame corresponding to the second frame rate (normal frame rate) is transmitted as described above.

Therefore, in a case of a receiver that has decoding ability with which the video data at the second frame rate (normal frame rate) can be processed, it is possible to display a smooth image as a moving image by processing the basic stream and obtaining the second frame rate and to avoid occurrence of a problem in image quality in a frame interpolation processing based on low load computation in display processing.

In addition, according to an embodiment of the present technology, the extended stream obtained by encoding the remaining frames is obtained along with the basic stream, and the information about the mixing rate of the corresponding frames is inserted into the basic stream and the extended stream in association with the respective frames, and the extended stream is then transmitted. Therefore, in a case of a receiver that has decoding ability with which the video data at the first frame rate (high frame rate) can be processed, it is possible to easily obtain the mixing-released video data at the first frame rate on the basis of the information about the mixing rate in each frame and to satisfactorily display the moving image at the first frame rate.

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present technology, there is provided a reception apparatus that receives a basic stream and an extended stream, which are obtained by performing processing of mixing, at a mixing rate for each frame, a frame of first video data with one or more peripheral frames of the first video data. The reception apparatus obtains second video data at a first frame rate, the second video data including frames corresponding to a second frame rate that is lower than the first frame rate.

The reception apparatus mixes the frames corresponding to the second frame rate with the peripheral frames and encodes the frames corresponding to the second frame rate to obtain the basic stream. The reception apparatus encodes remaining frames of the second video data to obtain the extended stream. Information about the mixing rate of corresponding frames is included in the basic stream and the extended stream in association with the respective frames.

The reception apparatus further decodes, based on a frame rate capability of a display connected to the reception apparatus, either the basic stream to obtain frames at the second frame rate or the basic stream and the extended stream to obtain the second video data, and, in the latter case, obtains mixing-released video data at the first frame rate by performing back mixing processing on the second video data on a basis of the information about the mixing rate.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, the video data at the second frame rate (normal frame rate) is obtained by processing only the basic stream in a case in which there is decoding ability with which the video data at the second frame rate (normal frame rate) as described above. Since the image data in each frame that forms the video data at the second frame rate (normal frame rate) is mixed with the peripheral frames, and a shutter aperture ratio is raised, it is possible to display a smooth image as a moving image and to avoid occurrence of a problem in image quality in the frame interpolation processing based on low load computation in the display processing.

In addition, according to an embodiment of the present technology, both the basic stream and the extended stream are processed to obtain the video data at the first frame rate (high frame rate) after the mixing processing, and further, the back mixing processing is performed on the basis of the information about the mixing rate in each frame to obtain the mixing-released video data at the first frame rate (normal frame rate) in a case in which there is decoding ability with which the video data at the first frame rate (high frame rate) can be processed. Therefore, it is possible to satisfactorily display the moving image at the first frame rate (high frame rate).

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present technology, there is provided a reception apparatus that acquires second video data obtained by performing processing of mixing, at a mixing rate for each frame, a frame of first video data with one or more peripheral frames of the first video data. The reception apparatus then transmits the second video data and information about the mixing rate in each frame to an external device via a transfer path.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, synchronization frame information indicating whether or not it is necessary to synchronize with a next video frame is included in the information about the mixing rate. The reception apparatus respectively inserts the information about the mixing rate in each frame into a blanking period of each frame of the second video data and transmits the second video data.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, the reception apparatus performs back mixing processing on each frame of the second video data on a basis of the information about the mixing rate to obtain third video data. The reception apparatus then transmits the third video data instead of the second video data when the external device does not have a function of the back mixing processing.

According to an embodiment, the second video data has a first frame rate, the second video data includes frames corresponding to a second frame rate that is lower than the first frame rate, and the frames corresponding to the second frame rate are mixed with the peripheral frames.

In addition, in an embodiment of the present technology, for example, the reception apparatus then transmits fourth video data that includes the frames corresponding to the second frame rate instead of the second video data when a frame rate at which display is able to be performed by the external device is the second frame rate.

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present technology, there is provided a reception apparatus that receives second video data obtained by performing processing of mixing, at a mixing rate for each frame, a frame of first video data with one or more peripheral frames of the first video data. The reception apparatus also receives information about a mixing rate in each frame from an external device via a transfer path. The reception apparatus then obtains mixing-released video data by performing back mixing processing on each frame of the second video data on a basis of the information about the mixing rate.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, the reception apparatus also receives information about a mixing rate in each frame from an external device via a transfer path. The reception apparatus then obtains mixing-released video data by performing back mixing processing on each frame of the second video data on a basis of the information about the mixing rate.

According to an embodiment of the present technology, the information about the mixing rate in each frame is received along with the second video data after the mixing processing from the external device, and the mixing-released video data is obtained by performing the back mixing processing on each frame of the second video data on the basis of the information about the mixing rate. Therefore, it is possible to appropriately obtain the video data with accuracy that is similar to that before the mixing processing and to satisfactorily display the moving image.

Advantageous Effects of Invention

According to an embodiment of the present technology, it is possible to satisfactorily transfer moving image data at the normal frame rate and the high frame rate. In addition, the advantages described herein are not necessarily limited, and any of the advantages described in the present disclosure may be achieved.

