METHOD OF PIXEL AVERAGING IN A VIDEO PROCESSING APPARATUS

A method of pixel averaging is disclosed which advantageously employs a relatively low number of registers, relatively few memory accesses and a relatively low number of steps. A first register is loaded with a first sequence of pixel values which are to be averaged with a second sequence of pixel values loaded into a second register. The pixel values of the first sequence are stored in respective segments of the first register and the pixel values of the second sequence are stored in respective segments of the second register. The pixel values in the first and second registers are shifted to the right by one. The most significant bit of each of the segments of the first register and the most significant bit of each of the segments of the second register are masked. First masked quotients are thus obtained in each of the segments of the first register and second masked quotients are thus obtained in each of the segments of the second register. The first masked quotients in the segments of the first register are added to respective second masked quotients in the second register to obtain a plurality of pixel value averages.