APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING IMAGE SIGNAL

An image signal processor and an image signal processing method arranged to limit a deterioration in image quality at the time of compression and expansion at a low coding rate. Data of an input image undergoes pre-processing in a pre-processing unit before being compressed by a compressor unit in accordance with the MPEG method. An information amount prediction processor calculates activity representing the complexity of the image input through an image input unit, and sets filter coefficients and the number of pixels of an output image according to the activity such that the amount of information of a picture to be compressed is reduced. The information amount prediction processor supplies a filter processor and a thinning-out processor with the filter coefficients and the number of pixels, respectively. The filter processor performs filtering with the filter coefficients, and the thinning-out processor converts the input image so that the output image has the set number of pixels.