A multimedia authoring and playback system and method in which the playback of multimedia content is presented in one or more windows or displays called “playback displays,” and in which additional windows or displays called “control displays” are included in some embodiments to provide various management and control functions. Included are features for creating, editing and distributing multimedia content, which may be viewed by recipients who play the content (and in some cases may be allowed to modify it); also included are features for programming playback behavior of multimedia content, interconnecting multimedia content, and exploring and navigating through multimedia content.

System and method for multimedia authoring and playback

A personal media broadcasting system enables video distribution over a computer network and allows a user to view and control media sources over a computer network from a remote location. A personal broadcaster receives an input from one or more types of media sources, digitizes and compresses the content, and streams the compressed media over a computer network to a media player running on any of a wide range of client devices for viewing the media. The system may allow the user to issue control commands (e.g., “channel up”) from the media player to the broadcaster, causing the source device to execute the commands. The broadcaster and the media player may employ several techniques for buffering, transmitting, and viewing the content to improve the user's experience.

Personal media broadcasting system with output buffer

A media device allows users to watch and capture portions from a media stream. Users may then share the captured media content with other users. In one embodiment, the media device receives a media stream, plays the media stream, and caches a portion of the media stream as it is being played. A user can define a media clip by selecting its boundaries in the cached portion of the media stream. The media device creates the media clip based on the user's input and enables the user to transmit the media clip to another system, such as a community website for sharing it with other users.

Capturing and sharing media content

A method for effectively implementing a multi-room television system includes a digital base station that processes and combines various program sources to produce a processed stream. A communications processor then responsively transmits the processed stream as a local composite output stream to various wired and wireless display devices for flexible viewing at variable remote locations. The transmission path performance is used to determine the video encoding process, and special attention is taken to assure that all users have low-latency interactive capabilities.

Method for effectively implementing a multi-room television system

A multi-display system includes a host system that supports both graphics and video based frames for multiple remote displays, multiple users or a combination of the two. For each display and for each frame, a multi-display processor responsively manages each necessary aspect of the remote display frame. The necessary portions of the remote display frame are further processed, encoded and where necessary, transmitted over a network to the remote display for each user. In some embodiments, the host system manages a remote desktop protocol and can still transmit encoded video or encoded frame information where the encoded video may be generated within the host system or provided from an external program source. Embodiments integrate the multi-display processor with either the video decoder unit, graphics processing unit, network controller, main memory controller, or any combination thereof The encoding process is optimized for network traffic and attention is paid to assure that all users have low latency interactive capabilities.

Multiple remote display system

Multiple independent displays from one graphics controller can be driven in a wide variety of modes using multiple display controllers This invention incorporates a unique combination of enhancement building on a generic single multi-display graphics subsystem Digital video is gaining vast popularity in the worldwide consumer, professional and commercial market The applications of this invention cover all these market segments and include (but are not limited to) Digital Content Creation, Digital video playback, digital entertainment, DVD Authoring etc

Multiple display device display controller with video overlay and full screen video outputs

A display controller system is controlled to provide a display surface zoom using hardware scaling from user input at the operating system, application program or hardware level. User input defining coordinates of a frame portion within a frame buffer memory is obtained, and a resolution of the zoom display device is determined. An aspect ratio of the zoom portion defined by the user input is adjusted to correspond to the zoom display device resolution. The display controller system is programmed to implement the display surface zoom to provide a full screen view of the zoom portion on the zoom display device. In the display controller system, the zoom portion of the frame buffer memory is scaled, converted into a display signal and output.

Kamran Ahmed

Papers

Multiple display device display controller with video overlay and full screen video outputs

User selectable hardware zoom in a video display system