Method for simultaneously recording motion and still images in a digital camera

Abstract

A method for simultaneously recording motion and still images, includes the steps of: capturing a motion image sequence and accompanying audio of a scene with a digital video camera adapted to record both motion and higher resolution still images; simultaneously capturing a still image sequence having a higher resolution and lower frame rate than the motion capture sequence; compressing the motion image sequence using interframe compression and the accompanying audio and storing the compressed motion image and audio data; and compressing the still images using intraframe coding and storing the compressed still image data.

1 . A method for simultaneously recording motion and still images in a digital camera, comprising: 
 a) using an image sensor to capture a sequence of image frames, the sequence of image frames including a repeating sequence of full resolution image frames regularly interspersed between reduced resolution image frames, wherein the full resolution image frames represent images with more pixels than are represented by the reduced resolution image frames;    b) processing the sequence of image frames using a processor, wherein the processing time for the full resolution image frames is longer than the processing time for the reduced resolution image frames; and    c) storing the processed sequence of image frames.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the repeating sequence has a single full resolution image frame followed by a plurality of reduced resolution image frames.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the processed full resolution image frames are stored using a low resolution component stored as part of a motion sequence, and a full resolution component.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising receiving operator input for determining a number of full resolution image frames to be captured per second.