Dynamic compression-rate selection arrangement
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- means responsive to incoming signals, for compressing the incoming signals at any of a plurality of different compression rates, to produce compressed signals;
means having a finite storage capacity, for storing the compressed signals;
means for automatically causing the compressing means to increase the rate of compressing the incoming signals, in response to decrease in the storage means'"'"' storage capacity that is presently free of stored compressed signals.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A signal compression-selection arrangement (19) dynamically trades off signal storage capacity against signal quality, by sacrificing capacity in favor of signal quality whenever capacity is plentiful and sacrificing quality in favor of capacity whenever capacity is scarce. In a messaging system (FIG. 1), the arrangement monitors the amount of storage (14, 15) that is presently free and available for storing new messages, either on a system-wide or per-mailbox basis, and automatically selects a higher compression rate (13) than a presently-applied compression rate (13) to be applied to newly-received messages as the amount of free storage falls below each predetermined threshold. Storage capacity may be freed up by re-compressing (FIG. 3) at the new, higher, compression rate those stored messages that were previously compressed at a lower compression rate.
145 Citations
21 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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means responsive to incoming signals, for compressing the incoming signals at any of a plurality of different compression rates, to produce compressed signals; means having a finite storage capacity, for storing the compressed signals; means for automatically causing the compressing means to increase the rate of compressing the incoming signals, in response to decrease in the storage means'"'"' storage capacity that is presently free of stored compressed signals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20)
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11. A messaging system comprising:
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a memory defining a plurality of mailboxes each for storing compressed messages destined for that mailbox, each mailbox having a finite storage capacity; a signal processor responsive to receiving messages, for compressing the received messages at any of a plurality of different compression rates to produce the compressed messages; and means for automatically causing the signal processor to increase the compression rate of compressing the received messages that are destined for any individual mailbox, in response to detecting a predetermined decrease in the individual mailbox'"'"'s storage capacity that is presently free of stored compressed messages. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method of compressing signals comprising the steps of:
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receiving signals; compressing the received signals at a compression rate to produce compressed signals; storing the compressed signals in a store having finite storage capacity; determining a decrease in the store'"'"'s storage capacity that is presently free of stored compressed signals; and in response to the determining, automatically increasing the compression rate that is being used to compress the received signals. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 21)
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Specification