A System and Methods for Generating and Managing Filter Strings in a Filter Graph

• US 20060168554A1
• Filed: 12/27/2005
• Published: 07/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rudolph, Eric H., Miller, Daniel J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,712,106 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/100
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence

Abstract

A method comprising generating a source chain for use in a development project, and caching the source chain when it is not currently required in the development project.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating a source chain for use in a development project, the source chain comprising a series of filters to process and render media content; and

caching the source chain when it is not currently required in the development project.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the source chain is cached only if it will subsequently be required in the development project, or a future development project.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein caching the source chain comprises:

generating an identifier which is uniquely assigned to the processing chain; and

storing the identifier along with a pointer to memory occupied by the processing chain in a cache of processing chain pointers.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the identifier is one or more of a source file handle, a file name, an icon, a randomly generated number uniquely assigned to the processing chain, an alphanumeric identifier, and the like.

5. A computing system comprising:

a storage medium having stored therein a plurality of executable instructions; and

an execution unit, coupled to the storage medium, to execute at least a plurality of the instructions to implement a method according to claim 1.

6. A method comprising:

generating a source chain for use in a development project, the source chain comprising a series of filters to process and render media content,

caching the source chain when it is not currently required in the development project,

identifying a need for a source processing chain; and

retrieving a suitable processing chain from a cache of such processing chains.

7. A method according to claim 6, further comprising:

integrating the retrieved processing chain into the development project

8. A method according to claim 6, further comprising:

modifying one or more attributes of the retrieved processing chain before integration into the development project.

9. A method according to claim 8, wherein modification to the retrieved processing chain may include one or more of adding processing objects to the processing chain, removing processing objects from the processing chain, altering one or more processing characteristics of one or more processing objects of the processing chain, and the like.

10. A system comprising:

a plurality of sources; and

an interface, selectively coupled to the plurality of sources, to generate and implement a development project of processing chains, wherein the interface loads a processing chain for each of the plurality of media sources at a point during the execution of the project when the chain is required, and wherein the interface is configured to unload at least a subset of the chains when they are not required, the processing chains comprising a series of filters to process and render media content.

11. A system according to claim 10, wherein the interface only loads those processing chains required during the next M seconds of project execution, and if a current chain-count does not exceed a threshold, T.

12. A system according to claim 11, wherein M is less than a time required to load a processing chain.

13. A system according to claim 11, wherein if the currently loaded chain-count has reached a threshold, T, the interface identifies one or more currently loaded chains that can be unloaded.

14. A system according to claim 13, wherein the interface identifies one or more currently loaded chains that will not be used during the next N seconds to unload.

15. A system according to claim 13, wherein the interface determines whether the identified one or more chains will be required during subsequent execution of the project, or in a future project and, if so, caches the identified chain(s).

16. A system according to claim 15, wherein the interface assigns a unique identifier to processing chains to be cached, and stores the unique identifier along with a pointer to memory wherein the processing chain resides in a processing chain cache.

17. A system according to claim 10, wherein the interface removes the identified chains from the development project and caches the removed chains.

18. A system according to claim 10, wherein the interface loads processing chains by first searching a cache of processing chains for a suitable match, and, if the interface identifies a suitable match, the processing chain is retrieved from memory for integration within the processing project.

19. A system according to claim 18, wherein, if the interface identifies a suitable match, the interface modifies one or more attributes of the retrieved processing chain before integration within the processing project.

20. A system according to claim 19, wherein modifying the processing chain, the interface performs one or more of adding one or more processing objects to the processing chain, removing one or more processing objects from the processing chain, modifying one or more processing characteristics of one or more processing objects within the processing chain.