System and method for record and playback of collaborative communications session

• US 7,349,944 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2005
• Issued: 03/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intercall Incorporated (West Corporation)
• Inventors: Rust, David Bradley, Jones, Dan, Vernon, Todd
• Primary Examiner(s): MEKY, MOUSTAFA M
• Application Number:
  US11/140,303
• Publication Number:
  US 20060200520A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,034 Days
• Field of Search: 709200-205, 709217-227
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

A collaborative communication session (“session”), as created by the presenter and witnesses by one or more users on second computers, may be recorded. The session may be replayed by a user'"'"'s computer, directing the audio and visual components of the browser on the user'"'"'s computer as if the user was attending the live session. The recorded session replays the events of the live session in real time such that they playback experience contains the same audio and visual events that took place when the session was originally being recorded. Moreover, the recorded session may be encoded such that the session may be played back according to the client'"'"'s playback capabilities, permissions and preferences.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for recording a collaborative communications session comprising:

at a first computer, sending a plurality of media type data used in said collaborative communication session to a recorder client;

at said recorder client, preparing a file of said collaborative communications session configured for playback according to a second computer'"'"'s processing capabilities, wherein the preparation of said file includes;

encoding each of said plurality of media type data into a plurality of media type streams using a mixture of key frames and delta frames; and

at a second computer, playing back said file by selecting at least one of the media type streams that matches the second computer'"'"'s processing capabilities.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of the media type data is an audio data element.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality the media type data is visual data element.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the key frame contains a complete copy of a buffer at a given point in time.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the delta frame is configured to include only changes to the buffer since a previously captured buffer.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of media data types are encoded, stored separately and later merged into the file.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein one of the plurality of media data types comprises visual data elements that include images dynamically integrated into the collaborative communication session.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the processing capability is the bandwidth connection.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the processing capability is the media type applications available on said computer.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the preparation of said file further includes:

recording each media type data as a separate track; and

synchronizing and merging the plurality of media type streams.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the recording further includes recording the media type data such that on playback the media type of each media type stream can be determined and used to apply different processing to each according to media type.

12. A method for recording a collaborative communications session, comprising:

receiving a plurality of media type data from a collaborative communication session for recording;

encoding each of the plurality of media type data into a plurality of media type streams using a mixture of full frames and delta frames;

merging the plurality of media type streams into a file for playback, wherein the file is configured to allow a subset of the plurality of media type streams to play according to a playback device'"'"'s processing capabilities.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one of the plurality of media type data is audio and at least one of the plurality of media type data is visual, and the subset of the media type streams played during playback comprises audio.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one of the plurality of media type data is audio and at least one of the plurality of media type data is visual, and the subset of the merged media type streams played during playback comprises audio and visual.

15. A system for recording a collaborative communication session, comprising:

a recorder client configured to receive a plurality of media type data from a collaborative communication session for recording;

an encoder client coupled to said recorder client, the encoder client configured to encode each of the plurality of media type data into a plurality of media type streams using a mixture of full frames and delta frames;

the encoder client further configured to merge the plurality of media type streams into a file for playback, wherein the file is configured to allow a subset of the plurality of media type streams to play according to a playback device'"'"'s processing capabilities.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one of the plurality of media type data is audio and at least one of the plurality of media type data is visual, and the subset of the media type streams played during playback comprises audio.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one of the plurality of media type data is audio and at least one of the plurality of media type data is visual, and the subset of the merged media type streams played during playback comprises audio and visual.