Destination application program interfaces

• US 7,735,096 B2
• Filed: 12/11/2003
• Issued: 06/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wilson, Mei L., Speed, Robin C. B., Weiss, Rebecca C., Sherwani, Adil, Sather, Dale A., Debique, Kirt A., Grigorovitch, Alexandre V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Li B
• Application Number:
  US10/735,522
• Publication Number:
  US 20050132168A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,371 Days
• Field of Search: 719/322, 719/328, 725/105
• US Class Current: 719/322
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4488 Object-oriented

Abstract

Media processing methods, systems and application program interfaces (APIs) in which a destination component, also referred to as a destination, provides an application with a simple and unified way of rendering, archiving, broadcasting (or other types of media output processing) media from an origin to a target of choice, without requiring the application to have intimate knowledge about underlying components, their connectivity and management. For example, applications can use a destination to help manage the rendering or archiving (or other processing) of the particular media.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

one or more computer-readable media, the one or more computer-readable media including;

a presentation that includes media content, the media content comprising at least one of audio content and video content;

a media engine to obtain input information from the media content, the media engine including at least one transform and at least one media sink, and the input information including a media content descriptor information and media type information;

a destination object to receive the input information from the media engine, to further selectively associate the input information with one or more output presentation descriptors, to provide the one or more output presentation descriptors to the media engine, and to expose an application program interface (API) by implementing a method that is defined to have;

an input argument that is a pointer to a descriptor of a stream of media content to be presented in the presentation,

another input argument that is a pointer to a media type to be used in presenting the stream of media content, and

an output argument that is a pointer to an object containing information regarding where and how media content is to be presented; and

an application to provide the presentation to an output target, the application further configured to dynamically create the media engine and the destination object,

wherein the media engine is further configured to setup the at least one transform and obtain the at least one media sink based on the one or more output presentation descriptors provided by the destination object to process the presentation for output to the output target.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the API is used by the application to interact directly with the destination object.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the output argument is an information object.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the destination object resides in a computing device and the media sink component resides in another computing device.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the destination object is to further signal the media engine that a connection or change therein has occurred between the computing devices.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination object is to further receive information associating an input media stream with a presentation output media stream.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the destination object is to further receive information associating an input media stream with a presentation output media stream without involvement of the application.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the output argument includes a plurality of sub-destination objects, each sub-destination object being related to an output media stream to be presented in the presentation.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the API is selectively used by the application to change how many sub-components are contained in the component.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the output presentation descriptors in the destination object can be changed while the presentation is being presented.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the destination object is to further signal the media engine that output presentation descriptors in the destination object is being changed.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the destination object is to further selectively signal the media engine in response to an operation by the application.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination object is to further selectively provide information to the media engine related to a presentation clock that allows the application to control the presentation independently of other media content being presented in the presentation.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination object is to further selectively provide outputs presentation descriptors for subsequent presentations originating from the media source in a “

timeline”

-style presentation.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination object is to selectively provide a series of output presentation descriptors to the media engine for a series of presentations that occur during a session.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the destination object selectively provides the output presentation descriptors multiple times as part of the series of output presentation descriptors.

17. A method for use by an application in presenting a presentation, the method comprising:

dynamically creating a media engine and a destination object using an application that provides media content to an output target;

selectively providing input information describing media content to be presented in the presentation to the a destination object in response to an operation by the a media engine;

selectively associating the input information with output information using the destination object, the output information enabling the transformation of the presentation for output to an output target; and

providing the output information from the destination object to the media engine,

wherein the media engine provides the presentation to the output target without requiring further interaction with the application by selectively setting up one or more transforms and obtaining one or more media sinks based on the output information following dynamic creation of the media engine by the application, and

wherein further the selectively providing and the providing comprise using an application program interface (API) implementing a method that is defined to have;

an input argument that is a pointer to a descriptor of a stream of media content to be presented in the presentation;

another input argument that is a pointer to a media type to be used in presenting the stream of media content; and

an output argument that is a pointer to the destination object.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the API is used by the application to interact indirectly with the media sinks of the media engine.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the destination object contains output information used by the media engine to determine where the presentation is to be presented.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the output information includes an output information object.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the selectively associating the input information with output information includes associating an input media stream with a presentation output media stream to be presented in the presentation.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the selectively associating the input information with output information includes obtaining output information related to a plurality of output media streams for which a given input media stream is intended in response to a request from the media engine.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising changing the number of output media streams are present in the plurality of output media streams in response to an operation by the application.

24. The method of claim 17, further comprising changing at least a portion of the selectively provided output information while the presentation is being presented.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising signaling the media engine that the at least a portion of the output information is being changed while the presentation is being presented.

26. The method of claim 25, selectively signaling the media engine in response to an operation by the application.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein the presentation is presented in a client device and the application resides in a server device.

28. The method of claim 17, wherein the selectively providing output information to the media engine includes providing presentation clock that enables the application to control the presentation independently of other media content being presented in the presentation.