SYSTEM, METHOD AND MULTIPOINT CONTROL UNIT FOR PROVIDING MULTI-LANGUAGE CONFERENCE

• US 20090187400A1
• Filed: 03/27/2009
• Published: 07/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: LIU, Zhihui, YUE, Zhonghui
• Granted Patent: US 9,031,849 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2061 Language aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/152 Multipoint control units therefor

Abstract

A system for providing multi-language conference is provided. The system includes conference terminals and a multipoint control unit. The conference terminals are adapted to process a speech of a conference site, transmitting the processed speech to the multipoint control unit, process an audio data received from the multipoint control unit and output it. At least one of the conference terminals is an interpreting terminal adapted to interpret the speech of the conference according to the audio data transmitted from the multipoint control unit, process the interpreted audio data and output the processed audio data. The multipoint control unit is adapted to perform a sound mixing process of the audio data from the conference terminals in different sound channels according to language types, and then sends mixed audio data after the sound mixing process to the conference terminals.

Claims

1. A system for providing a multi-language conference comprising:

conference terminals for processing speech of a conference site, transmitting the processed speech to a multipoint control unit, processing an audio data received from the multipoint control unit and outputting the processed audio data, wherein at least one of the conference terminals is an interpreting terminal for interpreting the speech of the conference site according to the audio data transmitted from the multipoint control unit, processing the interpreted audio data and outputting the processed audio data; and

a multipoint control unit for performing a sound mixing process of the audio data from the conference terminals in different sound channels according to language types and sending mixed audio data after the sound mixing process to the conference terminals.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

each of the conference terminals has at least one input interface and at least one output interface.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein each of the conference terminals provides at least one of a single-channel codec and a multi-channel codec to perform encoding and decoding.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the multipoint control unit supports sound mixing involving at least one party.

5. A method for providing multi-language conference, comprising:

receiving, by a multipoint control unit, audio data transmitted from each of conference terminals;

performing a sound mixing process of the audio data from each of the conference terminals in different sound channels according to language types; and

sending the processed audio data to the conference terminals,

wherein the audio data received by the multipoint control unit comprises the audio data sent to the multipoint control unit after processing a speech from a conference site by the conference terminals, and/or the audio data sent to the multipoint control unit after an interpreting terminal of the conference terminals interprets the speech of the conference site according to the audio data transmitted from the multipoint control unit and processes the interpreted audio data.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein

the conference terminal processes the audio data through at least one input interface and at least one output interface.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein

the conference terminals process the audio data by adopting one of a single-channel codec and a multi-channel codec.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the sound mixing process involves at least one party.

9. The method according to claim 5, wherein the sending the processed audio data to the conference terminals comprises:

sending, by the multipoint control unit, the audio data after the sound mixing process of a corresponding sound channel to the conference terminals according to language information corresponding to the conference terminals and identifier information of the interpreting terminal.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

presetting, by the multipoint control unit, the language information corresponding to the conference terminals and/or the identifier information of the interpreting terminal; and

/ or

receiving and storing, by the multipoint control unit, the language information and/ or the identifier information of the interpreting terminal transmitted from the conference terminals.

11. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:

selecting, by the multipoint control unit, conference sites according to a volume size of the speech of each of the conference sites, and sending the audio data of the selected conference sites to the interpreting terminal.

12. The method according to claim 7, further comprising:

selecting, by the multipoint control unit, conference sites according to a volume size of the speech of each of the conference sites, and sending the audio data of the selected conference sites to the interpreting terminal.

13. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

selecting, by the multipoint control unit, conference sites according to a volume size of the speech of each of the conference sites, and sending the audio data of the selected conference sites to the interpreting terminal.

14. The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

selecting, by the multipoint control unit, conference sites according to a volume size of the speech of each of the conference sites, and sending the audio data of the selected conference sites to the interpreting terminal.

15. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

selecting, by the multipoint control unit, conference sites according to a volume size of the speech of each of the conference sites, and sending the audio data of the selected conference sites to the interpreting terminal.

16. The method according to claim 11, wherein the selected conference sites comprise one or more conference sites, and the audio data transmitted from the interpreting terminal participates in the sound mixing processing in different sound channels.

17. The method according to claim 12, wherein the selected conference sites comprise one or more conference sites, and the audio data transmitted from the interpreting terminal participates in the sound mixing processing in different sound channels.

18. The method according to claim 14, wherein the selected conference sites comprise one or more conference sites, and the audio data transmitted from the interpreting terminal participates in the sound mixing processing in different sound channels.

19. A computer readable medium residing on a multipoint control unit, the computer readable medium comprising one or more computer executable programs stored therein, the computer executable programs comprising:

instructions for receiving audio data transmitted from a plurality of conference terminals;

instructions for performing a sound mixing process of the audio data from the plurality of conference terminals in different sound channels according to language types; and

instructions for sending the processed audio data to the plurality of conference terminals;

wherein the received audio data comprises;

the audio data sent to the multipoint control unit after the conference terminals process a speech of a conference site, and/or the audio data sent to the multipoint control unit after an interpreting terminal of the conference terminals interprets the speech of the conference site according to the audio data transmitted from the multipoint control unit and the interpreting terminal processes the interpreted audio data.

20. The computer readable medium according to claim 19, wherein the multipoint control unit supports sound mixing involving at least one party.