abstract |
A real time frame grabbing system for substantially instantaneously providing a continuous video display or a selectable predetermined video frame of information on a video display means from continuously transmittable video information which is transmitted as a plurality of pseudo video scan lines wherein the selected frame being grabbed is updatable on a displayable row by displayable row basis. Each of the pseudo video scan lines has a television scan line format and comprises a complete self-contained packet of digital information sufficient to provide an entire displayable row of video data characters, the pseudo video scan line having an associated transmission time equivalent to that of a television video scan line. The packet of digital information comprises at least address information for a displayable row and data informatiion for the displayable characters in the row. Each of these psuedo video scan lines further comprises a horizontal sync signal at the beginning thereof which provides a record separator between adjacent pseudo video scan lines and resets the input receiver logic for the transmitted pseudo video scan lines upon the detection of each horizontal sync signal to provide noise immunity enhancement. The pseudo video scan lines are transmitted and received through a conventional television distribution system. Each pseudo video scan line contains means for error checking the contents of the received pseudo video scan line for inhibiting display of the associated displayable row when the error check is not satisfied. Programmable means, such as a general purpose digital computer, is conventionally programmed to interleave the pseudo video scan line signal transmission to provide pseudo video scan line information corresponding to a common assigned row for a plurality of frames before providing such information corresponding to a subsequent different common assigned row for the plurality of frames. |