Method and device for realizing on-screen display (OSD) of characters

The invention discloses a method and a device for realizing on-screen display (OSD) of characters. The method comprises the following steps of: downloading dot matrix information corresponding to the common tag characters and the characters in an American standard code for information interchange (ASCII) character bank to a digital signal processor (DSP) memory; storing the dot matrix informationcorresponding to characters in a wide-byte character bank in a memory of a host; receiving an OSD display command and judging the types of to-be-displayed OSD characters; if the to-be-displayed OSD characters are the common tag characters and/or belong to the ASCII characters in the ASCII character bank, acquiring the dot matrix information corresponding to the to-be-displayed OSD characters fromthe memory of the DSP; if the to-be-displayed OSD characters are the characters in the wide-byte character bank, downloading the dot matrix information corresponding to the character from the memory of the host to the memory of the DSP; and uploading the dot matrix information corresponding to the to-be-displayed OSD characters to a video image to display. By using the method and the device, the required dot matrix character bank does not need to be downloaded to the memory of the DSP in advance.