Teleconferencing system
First Claim
1. A teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such system comprising:
- a dominant speaker detector, for determining which of a plurality of participants is at least one dominant speaker;
a bandwidth allocator, having a wide bandwidth codec and a narrow bandwidth codec, for allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a second portion of the available bandwidth to a non-dominant speaker participant; and
wherein the wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and the narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for encoding the speech of multiple speakers for transmission on a limited medium such as ISDN or ADSL. The system and method encode one or more “dominant” speakers on a first channel, and merges all other speakers into a second channel. A “dominant” speaker may be defined according to the needs of the application, but intuitively it is a speaker in a collaboration session who has the “floor”. The method and system transmit speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth. Speech from a speaking one, or ones, of the plurality of participants is passed while speech from non-speaking participants is rejected. The system responds to the speech from the one, or ones of the speaking participants passed by the speech detector, and determines which of the detected speaking one, or ones, thereof is a dominant speaker. The system allocates one portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and merges the non-dominant participant(s) onto a second bandwidth portion of the available bandwidth.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such system comprising:
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a dominant speaker detector, for determining which of a plurality of participants is at least one dominant speaker;
a bandwidth allocator, having a wide bandwidth codec and a narrow bandwidth codec, for allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a second portion of the available bandwidth to a non-dominant speaker participant; and
wherein the wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and the narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such system comprising:
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a speech detector responsive to speech from a plurality of participants, for passing speech from a speaking one, or ones, of the plurality of participants while rejecting non-speaking participants;
a dominant speaker detector, responding to the speech from the one, or ones of the speaking participants passed by the speech detector, for determining which of the detected speaking one, or ones, thereof is a dominant speaker;
a bandwidth allocator, having a wide bandwidth codec and a narrow bandwidth codec, for allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a second portion of the available bandwidth to a non-dominant speaker participant; and
wherein the wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and the narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (6)
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7. A teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such system comprising;
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a plurality of microphones, each one being associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of participants;
a dominant speaker detector, responsive to signals produced by the microphones, for determining which of a plurality of participants is a dominant speaker;
a bandwidth allocator, having a wide bandwidth codec and a narrow bandwidth codec, for allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a second portion of the available bandwidth to a non-dominant speaker participant; and
wherein the wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and the narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10)
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11. A teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such system comprising:
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a plurality of microphones, each one being associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of participants;
a speech detector responsive to signals produced by the plurality of microphones, for passing speech produced by the microphones from a speaking one, or ones, of the plurality of participants while rejecting non-speaking participants;
a dominant speaker detector, responding to the speech from the one, or ones of the speaking participants passed by the speech detector, for determining which one of the detected speaking one, or ones, thereof is a dominant speaker and for producing a signal indication of the participants determined to be the dominant speaker;
a bandwidth allocator, having a wide bandwidth codec and a narrow bandwidth codec, for allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker, such dominant speaker speech being transmitted in a relative wide bandwidth channel, and allocating a second portion of the available bandwidth to a non-dominant speaker participant;
wherein the wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and the narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (12)
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13. A method for transmitted speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such method comprising:
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determining which of a plurality of participants is a dominant speaker;
allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a non-dominant participant into a second bandwidth portion of the available bandwidth; and
wherein a wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and a narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15)
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16. A method of transmitting speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such method comprising:
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passing speech from a speaking one, or ones, of the plurality of participants while rejecting non-speaking participants;
responding to the speech from the one, or ones of the speaking participants passed by the speech detector, and determining which of the detected speaking one, or ones, thereof is a dominant speaker;
allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a non-dominant participant into a second bandwidth portion of the available bandwidth; and
wherein a wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and a narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (17)
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18. A method for transmitting speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such method comprising:
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providing a plurality of microphones, each one being associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of participants;
responding to signals produced by the microphones and determining, from such signals, which of a plurality of participants is a dominant speaker;
allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a non-dominant participant into a second bandwidth portion of the available bandwidth; and
wherein a wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and a narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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21. A method for transmitting speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such method comprising:
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providing a plurality of microphones, each one being associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of participants;
responding to signals produced by the plurality of microphones and passing speech produced by the microphones from a speaking one, or ones, of the plurality of participants while rejecting non-speaking participants;
responding to the speech from the one, or ones of the speaking participants passed by a speech detector, to determine which of the determined speaking one, or ones, thereof is a dominant speaker;
producing a signal indication of the participants determined to be the dominant speaker;
allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker, such dominant speaker speech being transmitted in a first bandwidth channel;
merging remaining speaking participants into a second portion of the available bandwidth;
transmitting the remaining speaking participants speech transmitting the signal indication of the participants determined to be the dominant speaker in a speaker code channel or coded into the audio data itself; and
wherein a wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and a narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth.
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22. A method for transmitted speech through a teleconferencing system having an available bandwidth, such method comprising:
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determining which of a plurality of participants is a dominant speaker, such determination being in response to parameters selectable by a moderator;
allocating a first portion of the available bandwidth to the determined dominant speaker and allocating a non-dominant participant into a second bandwidth portion of the available bandwidth; and
wherein a wide bandwidth codec encodes signals from the dominant speaker to first portion of the bandwidth and a narrow bandwidth codec encodes signals from the non-dominant speaker to the second portion of the bandwidth.
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Specification