Method and an apparatus for encoding video data for seamless connection using flags to indicate top or bottom of field and whether a field is presented plural times

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention has been developed with a view to substantially solving the above described disadvantages and has for its essential object to provide a seamless encoding method for telecine-converted video data.
In order to achieve the aforementioned objective, a signal conversion recording method applies a signal recording method whereby a video signal converted to a frame rate greater than the frame rate of the signal source by repeating particular fields plural times is converted to an intermediate signal having a frame rate substantially equal to the frame rate of the original signal source by deleting these repeated redundant fields, this intermediate signal is compression coded to obtain the recording signal, and the recording signal is recorded to a recording medium together with a repeat first field flag RFF declaring whether a field was deleted, and a top field first flag TFF declaring which of the two fields in each of the resulting frames is first on the time-base, wherein when plural logical recording periods are provided on a single recording medium, said video signal is converted to the recording signal so that said flags hold particular values at the start and end of each recording period.