Analog Video Storage via Spread Spectrum Encoding
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional video storage subsystems are inefficient in storing high-quality video data, requiring significant energy and space, and often degrade image fidelity due to compression and error-prone transmission methods.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of Spread Spectrum Video Transport (SSVT) technology, which encodes and stores video samples as analog levels in a storage array, reducing energy consumption and storage requirements by spreading samples across multiple locations, increasing resilience to errors, and allowing for error manifestation as white noise rather than compression artifacts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by stationary object
If conventional digital video storage is used, then video data can be stored, but significant energy and storage space are required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces digital binary storage with analog continuous voltage storage. Instead of storing video data as discrete digital bits requiring complex encoding and decoding, the system stores video signals as continuous analog voltage levels directly in capacitive memory elements. This substitution of digital mechanical/electronic storage with analog electrical storage dramatically reduces energy consumption and required storage space while maintaining video quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of data representation from discrete digital values to continuous analog voltage levels. By storing video information as continuous voltage signals rather than quantized digital samples, the system achieves more efficient use of storage resources and lower energy requirements, as analog storage naturally preserves signal continuity without requiring repeated read/write operations for refresh.
2Quantity of substance
If compression is applied to reduce storage requirements, then storage space decreases, but image fidelity degrades
Solution Approach 1:
The patent eliminates the need for compression algorithms by substituting digital storage with analog storage. The continuous voltage representation preserves all original video information without the quantization losses inherent in digital compression. This allows for reduced storage space through efficient analog encoding methods while maintaining complete image fidelity, as no data is discarded during the storage process.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates an analog copy of the original video signal that preserves continuous amplitude information. Instead of creating a compressed digital representation that loses information, the system creates an analog voltage copy that maintains the full dynamic range and temporal continuity of the original signal, thereby preserving image fidelity while achieving storage efficiency through the analog domain.
3Reliability
If digital encoding is used for transmission, then data can be transmitted, but errors manifest as compression artifacts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces digital encoding and decoding processes with direct analog transmission and storage. By maintaining video signals in their native analog form throughout the transmission and storage pipeline, the system eliminates the error sources introduced by digital quantization, encoding, and decompression. Errors that do occur in the analog domain manifest as random noise rather than structured compression artifacts, preserving perceived image quality.
4Reliability
If analog levels are spread across multiple storage locations, then resilience to errors increases, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the analog video signal across multiple storage locations in parallel. Each location stores a portion of the analog signal represented as a voltage level on a capacitive element. This segmentation provides redundancy and error resilience, as the continuous analog nature allows for interpolation and recovery even if some locations fail. The segmentation is implemented through simple parallel capacitor arrays rather than complex distributed storage systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the storage parameter from discrete digital bits to continuous analog voltage levels across multiple locations. This parameter change enables error resilience through the continuity of the analog signal - small variations or losses at individual locations can be compensated by the continuous nature of the signal and reconstruction algorithms, without requiring the overhead of complex error correction codes needed in digital systems.
Data Source
AI summary
Digital or analog samples are sent from a video source to a video storage subsystem that encodes the samples into analog levels, stores the analog levels for a period of time, decodes the analog levels back into digital samples and then sends the digital samples to a video sink for display, N samples are encoded into L analog levels for storage. The storage subsystem may be located at the video source, at the video sink, or anywhere in between the two. The storage subsystem may be located on an electromagnetic pathway over which the L encoded analog levels are transmitted from a video source as an analog signal. The L encoded analog levels are written to storage and then later read from storage and retransmitted over the electromagnetic pathway toward a video sink. The storage subsystem may also be integrated with a transmitter that encodes the samples into analog levels for storage or may be integrated with a receiver that stores the analog levels and then decodes the analog levels back into samples. A sentinel track in the storage array detects attenuation or offset which is then compensated for.