DVC delta commands

1. A method of encoding video, comprising the steps of:

predefining a set of pixel-copy commands based on frame location relationships between the present pixel and other pixels;

for the present pixel, encoding according to a hierarchy selection from:

(1) copy-pixel encoding that makes data packets defining the number of consecutive pixels of that can be represented by copying the color of a respective pixel with a frame location relationship;

(2) individually colored pixel encoding that makes a data packets each defining each color of the pixels in said given set of consecutive pixels;

(3) delta value pixel encoding that makes a data packets each defining the difference between the color a current pixel and a respective pixel with a frame location relationship; and

(4) two-color series pixel encoding that makes a data packet including each bit indicating which color, from a two-color set, applies to each of the pixels in said series of consecutive pixels, wherein pixels in said given set of consecutive pixels are comprised of colors from a two color set.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the encoding includes making fixed-size data packets including an opcode portion that identifies said copy-pixel encoding, delta value pixel encoding, two-color series pixel encoding, and individually colored pixel encoding and a payload portion.

3. A method according to claim 2 , wherein for at least some of the fixed-size data packets:

said opcode includes one bit identifying whether the corresponding data packet be associated with said individually colored pixel encoding;

said opcode of the data packet associated with said copy-pixel encoding and said two-color series pixel encoding includes two additional bits identifying the hierarchy selections associated with three different pixel copy commands and the two-color series pixels command; and

said payload portion has a length of at least n-bits.

4. A method according to claim 3 , wherein others of the fixed-size data packets include an extension bit linking payload of the data packet with the payload of a previous data packet and including a payload of greater than n-bits.

5. A method according to claim 4 , wherein others of the fixed-size packets include an extension bit linking the payload of the current data packet with the payload of the next data packet, which next data packet then includes a payload of greater than n-bits.

6. A method of compressing a video frame comprising pixels defined by n-bit color values partitioned into three y 1 -bit, y 2 -bit, and y 3 -bit channels, comprising the steps of:

for the y 1 -bit channel:

for a plurality of directional relationship types of a current pixel relative to a reference pixel, generating a (y 1 -x 1 )-bit delta value by determining a difference between a y 1 -bit reference pixel color value and a respective y 1 -bit current color value, where x 1 is a predetermined number of significant bits of y 1 ;

for the y 2 -bit channel:

for a plurality of directional relationship types of a current pixel relative to a reference pixel, generating a (y 2 -x 2 )-bit delta value by determining a difference between a y 2 -bit reference pixel color value from a respective y 2 -bit current color value, where x 2 is a predetermined number of significant bits of y 2 ;

for the y 3 -bit channel:

for a plurality of directional relationship types of a current pixel relative to a reference pixel, generating a (y 3 -x 3 )-bit delta value by determining a difference between a y 3 -bit reference pixel color value from a respective y 3 -bit current color value, where x 3 is a predetermined number of significant bits of y 3 ;

if the x 1 , x 2 , and x 3 significant bits of respective y 1 -bit, y 2 -bit, and y 3 -bit channels are equal for the n-bit reference pixel color and the n-bit current color value, determining the n-bit current color value by adjusting each channel of the n-bit reference pixel color value by the respective delta values.

7. A method dynamically adjusting the performance of a video compression system that compresses a video frame comprising pixels defined by n-bit color values channels by comparing the x most significant n-bits of current pixel to the respective x most significant bits of a reference pixel, comprising the steps of:

specifying a bytes per pixel ratio (BP);

for a group compressed pixels in video frame, determining an actual number of bytes required to compress the group of pixels;

determining a threshold number of bytes by multiplying BP and the number of pixels in the group;

comparing the actual number of bytes to the threshold number of bytes; and

if the actual number of bytes is greater than the threshold number of bytes, reducing x.

8. The method of 7 , wherein BP is defined by the following equation:

BP=(bytes/second)/(frame width*frame height*frames per second); and wherein the step of setting a bytes per pixel ratio (BP) further comprises setting the (bytes/second) value.