System and method for interfacing MPEG-coded audiovisual objects permitting adaptive control

• US 6,092,107 A
• Filed: 04/07/1998
• Issued: 07/18/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.), Trustees Of Columbia University In The City Of New York (Columbia University)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.), Columbia University
• Inventors: Eleftheriadis, Alexandros, Puri, Atul, Schmidt, Robert Lewis, Kalva, Hari, Fang, Yihan
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller, John W.
• Application Number:
  US09/055,934
• Time in Patent Office: 833 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217-219, 345/327, 348/6, 348/7, 348/10, 348/12, 348/13, 348/725-728, 455/3.1-6.3, 370/536, 370/542
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/42 Arrangements for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/27 involving both synthetic and natural picture components, e.g. synthetic natural hybrid coding [SNHC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4431 characterized by the use of Application Program Interface [API] libraries
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4437 Implementing a Virtual Machine [VM] virtual machines in general G06F9/45533
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4728 for selecting a Region Of Interest [ROI], e.g. for requesting a higher resolution version of a selected region
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method allowing the adaptation of a nonadaptive system for playing/browsing coded audiovisual objects, such as the parametric system of MPEG-4. The system of the invention is referred to as the programmatic system, and incorporates adaptivity on top of the parametric system. The parametric system of MPEG-4 consists of a Systems Demultiplex (Demux) overseen by digital media integration framework (DMIF), scene graph and media decoders, buffers, compositer and renderer. Adaptations possible with the invention include interfaces in the categories of media decoding, user functionalities and authoring, thus allowing a number of enhanced functionalities in response to use input as well as graceful degradation in response to limited system resources. The invention includes a specification of an interfacing method in the form of an application programming interface (API). Hot object, directional, trick mode, transparency and other interfaces are specified.

Claims

1. A system for decoding audiovisual objects coded according to the MPEG-4 standard, comprising:

an interface library containing a predetermined set of standardized application programming interfaces for processing audiovisual objects, each of the standardized programming interfaces having predefined function calls;

a processor, configured to access the interface library, and to decode and present audiovisual objects according to function calls related to at least one of the application programming interfaces.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor unit executes a client application invoking the function calls.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user input unit, the system being responsive to a state of decoding, playback or browsing system resources and to user interaction provided through the user input unit.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the interface library comprises a visual decoding interface to decode visual object bitstreams.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the interface library comprises a functionality interface to provide enhanced user interaction.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the interface library comprises an authoring interface providing bitstream editing and manipulation capabilities.

7. An operating system using the system of claim 1 to provide visual, functionality and authoring interfaces using the interface library.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a video decode and playback unit supporting the interface library.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a multimedia browser module employing the interface library for user viewing.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a multimedia plug-in module called from a web browser employing the interface library.

11. A method for decoding audiovisual objects coded according to the MPEG-4 standard, comprising the steps of:

generating an interface library, the interface library comprising a predetermined set of standarized application programming interfaces;

accessing the audiovisual objects using variables related to at least one of the set of interface definitions in the interface library; and

decoding the audiovisual objects represented by the variables.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of executing a client application, the client application forming an adaptive system controlling an underlying MPEG-4 decoding system.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of providing a user input, the interfacing being responsive to a state of decoding, playback, or browsing system resources and to user interaction provided through the user input unit.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the interface library comprises a visual decoding interface to decode visual object bitstreams.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the interface library comprises a functionality interface to provide enhanced user interaction.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the interface library comprises an authorizing interface providing bitstream editing and manipulation capabilities.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of providing an operating system using visual, functionality and authoring interfaces to a user using the interface library.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of decoding and playing back video information using the interface library.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of providing a multimedia browser employing the interface library.

20. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of providing a multimedia plug-in called from a web browser employing the interface library.