System to dispatch video decoding to dedicated hardware resources

• US 10,542,233 B2
• Filed: 07/22/2015
• Issued: 01/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genetec Incorporated (Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Genetec Incorporated (Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Slupik, Andre, Berard, Xavier
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Peter D
• Application Number:
  US14/806,025
• Publication Number:
  US 20160119572A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,644 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/20 Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00007 Time or data compression or expansion audio compression based on psychoacoustics G10L19/00; data processing for reproducing audio data at different playback speeds G10L21/04; video compression H04N19/00; data compression per se H03M7/30
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/00072 the compressed signal including a video signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/156 Availability of hardware or computational resources, e.g. encoding based on power-saving criteria
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4183 providing its own processing capabilities, e.g. external module for video decoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/485 End-user interface for client configuration
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0122 the input and the output signals having different aspect ratios
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

A system to perform processing operations of input (video) streams, including is disclosed. The system consists of an input module, a stream type detection engine, a plurality of processing resources a resource monitoring engine, an attribution module, a dispatching module, and various other optional interface modules.

Claims

1. A security system video monitoring workstation for processing and displaying a plurality of streams of encoded or compressed video, the workstation comprising:

a multi-core central processing unit (CPU);

a data network interface;

a display control device comprising at least one graphics processing unit (GPU) having multiple hardware cores configured for video decoding multiple video streams;

memory storing instances of a GPU codec driver executable by said CPU and each configured to send one of said streams of encoded or compressed video to said at least one GPU with instructions to decode said one of said streams and to display said one of said streams in a predetermined tile of a display;

memory storing instances of at least one video codec program module executable by said CPU and configured to decode a format of encoded or compressed video and to send decoded video image data to said at least one GPU for scaling and output in a predetermined tile of a display;

memory storing a stream receiving and dispatching program module executable by said CPU and configured to receive said plurality of streams of encoded or compressed video from said data network interface and to selectively relay each one of said streams to either one of said GPU codec driver instances or to one of said video codec program module instances; and

memory storing a control program module executable by said CPU and configured to detect a processing error or failure of one of said GPU codec driver instances handling a given one of said streams and, in response to said error or failure, cause said stream receiving and dispatching program module to relay said given one of said streams to one of said video codec program module instances with instruction to display said given one of said streams in a same predetermined tile of said display.

2. The workstation as defined in claim 1, wherein said stream receiving and dispatching program module is configured to handle more than 15 video streams from said data network interface.

3. The workstation as defined in claim 1, wherein said stream receiving and dispatching program module is configured to handle more than 24 video streams from said data network interface.

4. The workstation as defined in claim 1, wherein said stream receiving and dispatching program module is further configured to detect a format of said streams and to determine based on the format whether each one of said streams should be initially relayed to said one of said GPU codec driver instances or to said one of said video codec program module instances.

5. A method for processing and displaying a plurality of streams of encoded or compressed video in a security system, the method comprising:

receiving said plurality of streams of encoded or compressed video from a data network interface;

relaying each one of said streams to either one of a plurality of graphics processing unit (GPU) codec driver instances or to one of a plurality of video codec program module instances executed in a central processing unit (CPU);

displaying decoded video streams from both said plurality of GPU codec driver instances and said plurality of video codec program module instances in tiles of a display; and

detecting a processing error or failure of one of said GPU codec driver instances handling a given one of said streams and, in response to said error or failure, relaying said given one of said streams to one of said video codec program module instances with instruction to display said given one of said streams in a same predetermined tile of said display.

6. The method as defined in claim 5, wherein said receiving comprises receiving more than 15 video streams.

7. The method as defined in claim 5, wherein said receiving comprises receiving more than 24 video streams.

8. The method as defined in claim 5, further comprising detecting a format of said streams and determining based on the format whether each one of said streams should be initially relayed to said one of said GPU codec driver instances or to said one of said video codec program module instances.

9. The method as defined in claim 5, wherein said relaying comprises initially relaying all streams able to be processed by a GPU codec to one of said plurality of GPU codec driver instances.