BUFFER MANAGEMENT FOR REAL-TIME STREAMING

• US 20090204790A1
• Filed: 02/07/2008
• Published: 08/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Khan, Humayun Mukhtar
• Granted Patent: US 8,665,281 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 712/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/00 General purpose image data processing

Abstract

Technologies are described herein for buffer management during real-time streaming. A video frame buffer stores video frames generated by a real-time streaming video capture device. New video frames received from the video capture device are stored in the video frame buffer prior to processing by a video processing pipeline that processes frames stored in the video frame buffer. A buffer manager determines whether a new video frame has been received from the video capture device and stored in the video frame buffer. When the buffer manager determines that a new video frame has arrived at the video frame buffer, it then determines whether the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame. If the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame, the buffer manager discards the new video frame stored in the video frame buffer or performs other processing on the new video frame.

Claims

1. A method for managing the contents of a buffer in a real-time video streaming system, the method comprising:

determining whether the buffer has a new video frame;

in response to determining that the buffer has a new video frame, determining whether a video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame; and

discarding the new video frame in response to determining that the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the new video frame comprises a video frame generated by a real-time streaming video capture device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame comprises querying the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame comprises checking an input/output control command to and from the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the video processing pipeline is executed within a kernel of an operating system.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the video processing pipeline is executed within a multimedia framework.

7. A computer storage medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

maintain a buffer for buffering video frames;

execute a video processing pipeline for processing the video frames; and

to

execute a buffer manager, the buffer manager being configured to determine whether the buffer has a new video frame, to determine if the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame in response to determining that the buffer has a new video frame, and to discard the new video frame in response to determining that the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame.

8. The computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the video processing pipeline is configured to retrieve video frames from the buffer for processing.

9. The computer storage medium of claim 8, wherein the video frames comprise video frames generated by a real-time streaming video capture device.

10. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein the video processing pipeline is executed within a kernel of an operating system executing on the computer.

11. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein the video processing pipeline is executed within a multimedia framework executing on the computer.

12. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein determining if the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame comprises querying the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

13. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein determining if the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame comprises checking an input/output control command to and from the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

14. A method for managing the contents of a video frame buffer in a real-time video streaming system, the method comprising:

maintaining the video frame buffer for storing video frames generated by a video capture device;

executing a video processing pipeline for processing video frames stored in the video frame buffer;

receiving a new video frame from the video capture device and storing the new video frame in the video frame buffer; and

executing a buffer manager configured to determine whether the new video frame has been stored in the video frame buffer, to determine whether the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame in response to finding that the new video frame has been stored in the video frame buffer, and in response to determining that the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame, to perform processing on the new video frame stored in the video frame buffer.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein performing processing on the new video frame stored in the video frame buffer in response to determining that the video processing pipeline has an uncompressed video frame comprises discarding the new video frame.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein performing processing on the new video frame stored in the video frame buffer in response to determining that the video processing pipeline has an uncompressed video frame comprises averaging the new video frame with a next new video frame stored in the video frame buffer.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the video capture device comprises a real-time streaming video capture device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the video processing pipeline is executed within a kernel of an operating system or within a multimedia framework.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein determining whether the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame comprises querying the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein determining whether the video processing pipeline has an unprocessed video frame comprises checking an input/output control command to and from the video processing pipeline to determine whether the video processing pipeline contains an unprocessed video frame.