System and method for representing compressed information

• US 7,353,447 B2
• Filed: 02/17/2004
• Issued: 04/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Johnson, James David, Quackenbush, Schuyler Reynier
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAUDRY, MUJTABA M
• Application Number:
  US10/780,383
• Publication Number:
  US 20040160962A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,505 Days
• Field of Search: 714/776, 382/252
• US Class Current: 714/776
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23892 involving embedding information at multiplex stream level, e.g. embedding a watermark at packet level
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream

Abstract

The present invention provides a system and method for storing re-synchronization, error correction and/or error detection data within an existing communication protocol, while still maintaining full compliance to a standard, such as the MPEG-2 AAC standard. By doing so, data information can still be passed from an encoder to a decoder via a channel using an existing and well known standard transport protocol. However, the existing well known transport protocol can now include the data necessary for synchronization of the decoder to the received raw data, along with error detection and error correction by the decoder.

Claims

1. A bitstream in computer-readable medium, the bitstream obeying the MPEG-2 or the MPEG-4 protocol that permits the transmission of private data in the data stream element (DSE) field of the obeyed protocol, the bitstream generated according to a method comprising:

receiving data from a data source;

determining syntax information for the data;

encoding the data and the syntax information into an encoded bitstream, at least a portion of the syntax information being included in the DSE field and the interpretation of said portion of the syntax information being unspecified by the obeyed protocol; and

transmitting the encoded bitstream.

2. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein said portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to identify a bit at which decoding should begin.

3. The bitstream according to claim 2, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein each frame portion includes at least one private data portion.

4. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein said portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any bits in a frame portion contain errors.

5. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein said portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any of the bits in the bitstream contain errors.

6. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein said portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any of the bits of at least one sub-portion of a frame portion contain errors.

7. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein at least some of the frame portions further include one or more sub-portions that vary in number and size between different frame portions.

8. The bitstream according to claim 7, wherein said portion of the syntax information includes at least length information of said one or more sub-portions.

9. The bitstream according to claim 8, wherein a decoder uses the length information to skip sub-portions of a frame portion that are determined to contain errors.

10. The bitstream according to claim 1, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein each frame portion further includes a plurality of elements, each element including an element ID that identifies a type of element in the bitstream.

11. The bitstream according to claim 10, wherein the plurality of elements includes at least a data stream element having a data stream ID.

12. The bitstream according to claim 11, wherein the data stream element further includes a tag that identifies the type of data contained in a data portion of the data stream element.

13. The bitstream according to claim 12, wherein when the tag corresponds to a transport identifier, the data stream element includes standard information in the data portion of the data stream element.

14. An apparatus that transmits data in a bitstream, the bitstream obeying the MPEG-2 or the MPEG-4 protocol that permits the transmission of private data in a private data portion of the bitstream, the apparatus comprising:

means for transmitting a bitstream that receives data from a data source, determines syntax information for the data, encodes the data and the syntax information into an encoded bitstream, at least a portion of the syntax information being included in the private data portion of the encoded bitstream, and transmits the encoded bitstream, the interpretation of said portion of the syntax information being unspecified by the obeyed protocol.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to identify a bit at which decoding should begin.

16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and each frame portion includes at least one private data portion.

17. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and the portion of syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any bits in the respective frame portion contain errors.

18. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein said portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any of the bits in the bitstream contain errors.

19. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein the portion of the syntax information permits a decoder to determine if any of the bits of at least one sub-portion of the frame portion contains errors.

20. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein at least some of the frame portions further include one or more sub-portions that vary in number and size between different frame portions.

21. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein said portion of the syntax information includes at least length information of said one or more sub-portions.

22. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the length information enables a decoder to skip sub-portions of a frame portion that are determined to contain errors.

23. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the bitstream comprises a plurality of frame portions and wherein each frame portion further includes a plurality of elements, each element including an element ID that identifies a type of element in the bitstream.

24. The apparatus according to claim 23, wherein the plurality of elements include at least a data stream element having a data stream ID.

25. The apparatus according to claim 24, wherein the data stream element further includes a tag that identifies the type of data contained in a data portion of the data stream element.

26. The apparatus according to claim 25, wherein when the tag corresponds to a transport identifier, the data stream element includes standard information in the data portion of the data stream element.

27. A method comprising:

receiving a bitstream having a plurality of frame portions, the bitstream obeying the MPEG-2 or the MPEG-4 protocol that permits the transmission of private data in a private data portion, the interpretation of at least a portion of the data in the private data portion being unspecified by obeyed protocol, the bitstream including encoded data and further including syntax information for the encoded data, at least a portion of the syntax information being included in the private data portion; and

obtaining said portion of the syntax information from said private data portion.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein said obtained portion of the syntax information is synchronization information enabling said bitstream to be synchronized and wherein said method further comprises synchronizing said bitstream utilizing the obtained synchronization information.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein said obtained portion of the syntax information is information enabling a decoder to perform at least one of error detection, error control and error recovery.