System and method for transparently processing multimedia data

• US 20070214461A1
• Filed: 05/31/2006
• Published: 09/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Logitech Europe S A (Logitech International SA)
• Original Assignee: Logitech Europe S A (Logitech International SA)
• Inventors: Miauton, Patrick, Bateman, John, Glatron, Arnaud
• Granted Patent: US 8,606,950 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/321
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4486 Formation of subprogram jump address
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355

Abstract

A multimedia data processing system and method which transparently processes video and/or audio streams in real-time. The operation of a system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention does not require any intervention from, or involvement of, either the producer of the video and/or audio stream, or the client application. With such a transparent solution, video and/or audio streams can be processed seamlessly, and completely independently of the specific client application that the user chooses to use. In one embodiment, the invention uses an external service to monitor new processes and add code to these processes. The invention inserts into the system by hot-patching the software in memory and by only looking at select service calls.

Claims

1. A system for transparently processing multimedia data, comprising:

a data source for providing multimedia data;

a data sink for receiving the multimedia data;

a process creation monitor for detecting each process created;

an injection service for injecting with at least one hook each process detected; and

a user mode processing layer to which the at least one hook redirects the multimedia data, and

wherein the multimedia data is transparently processed before it reaches the data sink.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said injection service hot patches software in memory.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein hooks are inserted for only a subset of service calls of said process.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein said multimedia data is video data, and said video data is intercepted at the edge of the kernel, just before the data is sent or received to or from a capture driver

5. The system of claim 4 wherein said video data is intercepted by:

monitoring device and pin creation requests coming from client applications above;

determining which created pins are of interest;

monitoring traffic to pins of interest by intercepting device I/O Controls sent to these pins; and

stopping monitoring the pins of interest when they are closed.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein said monitoring traffic to pins further comprises:

monitoring creation formats, ‘

set format’

requests and read/write requests.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the multimedia data is video data.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein the data source is a webcam.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the multimedia data is audio data.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the data source is a microphone.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the multimedia data is still image data.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the data sink is a client application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the client application is an instant messaging application.

14. A method for processing multimedia data, wherein the multimedia data is provided by a data source, and the multimedia data is received by a data sink, where the processing is transparent to both the data source and the data sink, the method comprising:

detecting a process created in the system;

injecting at least one hook into the process;

routing, via the at least one hook, the multimedia data under control of the process to a processing layer;

processing the routed multimedia data in the processing layer,

providing the processed multimedia data to the data sink.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising inserting said hooks for only a subset of service calls of said process.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein said injecting comprises providing hot patches to software in memory.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein said multimedia data is video data, and said video data is intercepted at the edge of the kernel, just before the data is sent or received to or from a capture driver.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said video data is intercepted by:

monitoring device and pin creation requests coming from client applications above;

determining which created pins are of interest;

monitoring traffic to pins of interest by intercepting device I/O Controls sent to these pins; and

stopping monitoring the pins of interest when they are closed.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein said monitoring traffic to pins further comprises:

monitoring creation formats, ‘

set format’

requests and read/write requests.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the multimedia data is video data.

21. The method of claim 14, wherein the multimedia data is audio data.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the multimedia data is still image data.