High-resolution information storage and retrieval system including electronic refresh buffer

Claim 1

A high-resolution video filing system for storing and retrieving documentary information, said system having a storage mode wherein each document to be filed is electro-optically scanned and magnetically recorded and a retrieval mode in which a selected recording is played back and displayed to recreate the document in readable form, said system comprising: A. a high-resolution video camera for scanning each document to be filed to produce an analog video signal representing a single image frame having a predetermined number of scan lines in excess of 1000; B. a low-resolution magnetic tape video recorder having a rotating head assembly whose heads in the storage mode act to successively sweep across a moving magnetic tape to record thereon, and in the retrieval mode to play back the recording on the moving tape presented to the heads said tape is pre-recorded to provide a control track for synchronizing the operation of said camera with said recorder and an address track for locating the image frame recorded on said tape; C. a high-resolution video display monitor means capable of recreating a selected document in response to a video signal representing the image frame derived from the selected document; D. electronic switching means coupled to said camera in the storage mode to divide said video signal representing a single image frame into a series of fields each having the same number of scan lines, and to sequentially feed said fields to the heads of the recorder to record said fields along a like series of parallel transverse tracks to thereby produce a set thereof representing a frame image of said document; E. an electronic refresh buffer having a memory; and F. means in the retrieval mode to operate said recorder to play back the set of tracks representing the frame image of the document with selection means for retrieval and to write the resultant track signals into said buffer, the contents of said buffer then being read out repeatedly into said display monitor to display the selected document.