Multicast videoconferencing

• US 20070005804A1
• Filed: 11/12/2003
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SupraComm, Inc., Supracomm, TM Inc.
• Original Assignee: SupraComm, Inc.
• Inventors: Rideout, Neil
• Granted Patent: US 7,984,174 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/159 Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/187 the unit being a scalable video layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 : Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

In one embodiment, the invention is a method of transferring data. The method includes receiving a first video data stream at a first machine. The method also includes multicasting the first video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through a network. The method further includes receiving the first video data stream at a second machine. The method also includes playing the first video data stream on the second machine.

Claims

1. A method for sending video and audio data through a network, the method comprising the computer-implemented acts of:

sending said video and audio data in uncompressed form through said network;

using a multicast protocol for sending said video and audio data for sending said video and audio data; and

using an error correction to reduce packet loss when sending said video and audio data.

2. A method of transferring data comprising:

receiving a first video data stream at a first machine;

multicasting the first video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through a network;

receiving the first video data stream at a second machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the second machine.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the first video data stream includes audio data.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving the first video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

receiving the first video data stream at a fourth machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the fourth machine.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising

receiving a second video data stream at the second machine;

multicasting the second video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through the network;

receiving the second video data stream at the first machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the first machine.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving the second video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the third machine.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving the first video data stream at the third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

9. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

selecting a website at the first machine;

displaying the website at the first machine; and

displaying the website at the second machine.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

displaying the website at a third machine.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving the first video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising

receiving a second video data stream at the second machine;

multicasting the second video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through the network;

receiving the second video data stream at the first machine;

playing the second video data stream on the first machine;

receiving the second video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the third machine.

13. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the network is a local area network.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the network is the internet.

15. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the network is a wide area network.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the network is an intranet.

17. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

multicasting the first video data stream from the second machine back to the first machine.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

multicasting the second video data stream from the first machine back to the second machine.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

multicasting the second video data stream from the third machine back to the second machine; and

multicasting the first video data stream from the third machine back to the first machine.

20. The method of claim 2, wherein:

multicasting includes use of TCP packets and UDP packets in a BDP acknowledgment sequence to verify delivery.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein:

TCP packets are sent forward and corresponding UDP packets are sent back responsive to the TCP packets.

65. The method of claim 2, wherein:

multicasting includes use of acknowledgment packets without additional data to verify delivery.

66. The method of claim 2, wherein:

multicasting includes use of TCP packets and acknowledgment packets in a BDP acknowledgment sequence to verify delivery, the acknowledgment packets including no additional payload.

22. A computer-implemented method of videoconferencing through a network, comprising:

receiving a first video stream at a first machine;

multicasting the first video stream through the network;

receiving the first video stream at a set of machines; and

playing the first video stream on the set of machines.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, further comprising:

multicasting the first video stream from machines of the set of machines back to the first machine.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, further comprising

receiving a second video stream at a second machine, the second machine a part of the set of machines;

multicasting the second video stream through the network;

receiving the second video stream at the set of machines; and

playing the second video stream on the set of machines.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

multicasting the first video stream from the second machine back to the first machine.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

multicasting the second video data stream from the first machine back to the second machine.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

multicasting the second video stream from machines of the set of machines back to the second machine; and

multicasting the first video stream from machines of the set of machines back to the first machine.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

selecting a website at the first machine;

displaying the website at the first machine;

displaying the website at the second machine; and

displaying the website on the set of machines.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein:

the network is a local area network.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein:

the network is the internet.

31. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein:

the network is a wide area network.

32. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein:

the first video stream includes audio data.

33. A computer-implemented method of videoconferencing between multiple computers through a network utilizing a low-bandwidth and low-overhead protocol that avoids the high resource and high bandwidth requirements of prior videoconferencing methods, comprising:

receiving a first video data stream at a first machine through a user interface of the first machine suitable for capturing video data;

multicasting the first video stream through the network without first compressing the first video stream and without first translating the first video stream into a non-video stream data format;

receiving the first video stream as multicast through the network at a set of machines; and

playing the first video stream in a manner perceptible to users through a user interface for use by users to perceive images as received at the first machine on the set of machines.

34. An apparatus for videoconferencing, comprising:

means for receiving a first video data stream;

means for multicasting the first video data stream in uncompressed and raw form;

means for receiving the multicast first video data stream at a remote location; and

means for playing the multicast first video data stream at the remote location.

35. A machine-readable medium having embodied therein instructions, which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving a first video data stream at a first machine;

multicasting the first video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through a network;

receiving the first video data stream at a second machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the second machine.

36. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving the first video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

37. The machine-readable medium of claim 36, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving the first video data stream at a fourth machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the fourth machine.

38. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

the first video data stream includes audio data.

39. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a second video data stream at the second machine;

multicasting the second video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through the network;

receiving the second video data stream at the first machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the first machine.

40. The machine-readable medium of claim 39, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving the second video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the third machine.

41. The machine-readable medium of claim 40, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving the first video data stream at the third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

42. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the method further comprises:

selecting a website at the first machine;

displaying the website at the first machine; and

displaying the website at the second machine.

43. The machine-readable medium of claim 42, wherein the method further comprises:

displaying the website at a third machine.

44. The machine-readable medium of claim 43, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving the first video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the first video data stream on the third machine.

45. The machine-readable medium of claim 44, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a second video data stream at the second machine;

multicasting the second video data stream in uncompressed and raw form through the network;

receiving the second video data stream at the first machine;

playing the second video data stream on the first machine;

receiving the second video data stream at a third machine; and

playing the second video data stream on the third machine.

46. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

the network is a local area network.

47. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

the network is the internet.

48. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

the network is a wide area network.

49. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the method further comprises:

multicasting the first video data stream from the second machine back to the first machine.

50. The machine-readable medium of claim 45, wherein the method further comprises:

multicasting the second video data stream from the first machine back to the second machine.

51. The machine-readable medium of claim 50, wherein the method further comprises:

multicasting the second video data stream from the third machine back to the second machine; and

multicasting the first video data stream from the third machine back to the first machine.

52. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

multicasting includes use of TCP packets and UDP packets in a BDP acknowledgment sequence to verify delivery.

53. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein:

TCP packets are sent forward and corresponding UDP packets are sent back responsive to the TCP packets.

54. An apparatus for videoconferencing, comprising:

a user interface having a video capture component and a video display component;

a processor coupled to the user interface to control the video capture component and receive data from the video capture component and to control the video display component and send data to the video display component;

a network interface coupled to the processor to receive data from the video capture component and to multicast to a network the data from the video capture component,

the network interface further to receive multicast video data from the network and to send multicast data to the processor for use with the video display component.

55. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the user interface further having an audio data capture component and an audio data output component;

the processor further to control the audio data capture component and receive data from the audio data capture component and to control the audio data output component and send data to the audio data output component;

the network interface further to receive data from the audio data capture component and to multicast to a network the data from the audio data capture component, the network interface further to receive multicast audio data from the network and to send multicast audio data to the processor for use with the audio data output component.

56. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the video capture component is a video camera.

57. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the video output component is a display.

58. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the network interface is a LAN card.

59. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the network interface is a modem.

60. The apparatus of claim 55, wherein:

the audio data capture component is a microphone.

61. The apparatus of claim 55, wherein:

the audio data output component is a speaker.

62. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the network interface is to send TCP acknowledgment packets and to receive UDP acknowledgment packets.

63. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein:

the network interface is to use TCP acknowledgment packets and corresponding UDP acknowledgment packets.

64. A method of acknowledging transmission, comprising:

transmitting a TCP control packet; and

receiving a corresponding UDP acknowledgment packet.