Abstract:
A method and system are described for identifying video segments (e.g., commercials or television programs) without using any identification data that may or may not be provided in the non-displayed overscan portion or the vertical blanking interval of the video signal. Instead, the video segment is identified by recognizing patterns in the viewable portion of the video image data and/or in the video sound data. If the pattern is unique to a specific video segment, that video segment is identified by, for example, looking up the pattern in a table correlating patterns with video segment identifications. Any number of functions may be performed using this identification.
Abstract:
A method and apparatus for downloading auxiliary data to a client during idle periods and for displaying the auxiliary data while the client is fetching information from the network is disclosed. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the state of a client device is first determined, wherein the client device is in a fetching state while processing a user request and the user is waiting or in an idle state while not processing a user request and the user is not waiting for the client system. Auxiliary data is then downloaded from a server to the client device when the step of determining determines that the client device is in an idle state. Additionally, the downloaded auxiliary data is buffered in an auxiliary buffer. The auxiliary data is then processed to generate an output and the output is displayed on the client device while the client device is in a fetching state.
Abstract:
The present invention describes a method for transmitting high bandwidth network content on a low bandwidth communications channel during off peak hours. According to one embodiment of the present invention, criteria is determined for downloading data from the communications channel and the data is downloaded from the communications channel during off-peak hours based on the determined criteria. According to another embodiment, a method for coordinated multicasts on a network is described. Download requests are received on a server from a plurality of clients on the network and stored on the server for the coordinated multicast. The coordinated multicast is generated at a predetermined time and then broadcast from the server to the plurality of clients at the predetermined time.
Abstract:
A low power, single master, variable clock rate, daisy-chainable, serial bus connects a bus dispatch (master) to a chain of one or more daisy-chained peripheral devices (slaves). The bus has a bidirectional serial data line, a bidirectional clock line, unidirectional interrupt line, power and ground lines. All bus transactions over the bus occur under bus dispatch commands. If a peripheral device interrupts the bus dispatch, bus dispatch issues commands over the bus to determine which device caused the interrupt and what service is being requested by the device. The bus dispatch may then turn control of the data and clock lines over to the peripheral device for a limited amount of time depending on the service requested. New peripheral devices can be connected onto the bus and unused peripheral devices can be disconnected from the bus while the bus is operating without causing a bus failure. Similarly, bus dispatch may enter a low power sleep mode from which it may be awakened by a peripheral device. In some embodiments, additional lines such as battery charging lines and/or signal lines for other serial buses such as RS-232 and RS-422 are provided.
Abstract:
A video display apparatus for composing video signals for a raster scanned display on a line-by-line basis. Objects are stored in a video RAM and are packed in the RAM without regard to their location on the display. A separate dispatch table contains information on each object and commands. A dispatcher operates on this information, allowing lines of data and commands to be extracted from the RAM as each video line is composed in a buffer.
Abstract:
An apparatus and method is disclosed for reducing flicker in an interlaced computer generated raster-scanned display. Several circuits and methods are described for implementing vertical filtering. In general, the data for a given pixel on the nth, nth+1, nth+2 . . . nth+N line is read from memory and convolved to provide data for a given pixel on a display line before pixel data for other pixels along these lines is read from memory.
Abstract:
A system and method are described for adjusting communication with a first distributed-input-distributed-output (DIDO) client as the first DIDO client moves from a first DIDO cluster to a second DIDO cluster: For example, in one embodiment of the system and method, different signal strength thresholds are specified and either conventional DIDO precoding and/or DIDO precoding with inter-DIDO-cluster interference (IDCI) cancellation to avoid RF interference at the DIDO client are employed based on measured signal strengths from a main DIDO cluster and an interfering DIDO cluster.
Abstract:
A method includes multicasting by a server center of streaming interactive video/audio streams to multiple destinations via an outbound Internet traffic interface. A given video/audio stream is routed to multiple destinations simultaneously. At least one of the video/audio streams is received at a delay buffer of the server center, the delay buffer storing a replayable portion of at least one of the video/audio streams.
Abstract:
An apparatus and method are described for capturing images in visible light as well as other radiation wavelengths. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises: a diffraction coded imaging system including a plurality of apertures arranged in a diffraction coded array pattern with opaque material blocking array elements not containing apertures; and a light- or radiation-sensitive sensor coupled to the diffraction coded imaging system array and positioned at a specified distance behind the diffraction coded imaging system array, the radiation-sensitive sensor configured to sense light or radiation transmitted and diffracted through the apertures in the diffraction coded imaging system array.
Abstract:
A system and method are described below for reducing the effects of packet loss in a video communication system. For example, one embodiment of a computer-implemented method comprises: logically subdividing each of a sequence of images of a video stream into a plurality of tiles, each of the tiles having a defined position within each of the sequence of images; and packing the tiles into a plurality of data packets to maximize the number of tiles which are aligned with boundaries of each of the data packets; and transmitting the data packets containing the tiles over a communication channel from a server to a client.