Method and Apparatus for Manipulating MPEG Video

Abstract

A computer implemented method of manipulating and displaying an MPEG stream is described. In one embodiment of the invention, a computer implemented method comprises defining a spatial location across a series of pictures of an MPEG stream; and for each picture of the series of pictures in the MPEG stream, partially decoding the picture to determine an area of the picture falling within the spatial location.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An apparatus comprising:
 a computing device with a storage, said device to receive a user selection of a region of interest in a picture, said region of interest being smaller than the picture so as to define a remainder of the picture not including the region of interest, and encode said region of interest separately from the remainder of said picture; and   a storage coupled to said processor.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein less information is encoded for the remainder of the picture than for the region of interest. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the remainder of the picture is background. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein said computing device to determine which macroblocks are in the region of interest. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein said computing device to only encode said region of interest. 
     
     
         6 . An apparatus comprising:
 a computing device with a storage, said device to receive a user selection of a region of interest in a picture, said region of interest being smaller than the picture so as to define a remainder of the picture not including the region of interest, and encode said region of interest separately from the remainder of said picture; and   a display.   
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein less information is encoded for the remainder of the picture than for the region of interest. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein the remainder of the picture is background. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein said computing device to determine which macroblocks are in the region of interest 
     
     
         10 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein said computing device to only encode said region of interest.