Methods and apparatus for encoding a digital video signal

• US 8,077,989 B1
• Filed: 07/26/2010
• Issued: 12/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hobbs, David Victor, Ratto, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): Alavi, Amir
• Application Number:
  US12/804,613
• Time in Patent Office: 505 Days
• Field of Search: 382/166, 382/232, 382/233, 382/242, 375/240.01, 375/E7.264, 358/3.28, 348/14.01, 348/14.13, 348/420, 345/2.1, 345/3.1, 345/329, 341/63, 341/65, 341/67, 341/95, 341/106, 705/67, 709/227, 709/247, 709/250, 713/171, 713/176, 714/E11.173
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/12 Selection from among a plurality of transforms or standards, e.g. selection between discrete cosine transform [DCT] and sub-band transform or selection between H.263 and H.264
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/149 by estimating the code amount by means of a model, e.g. mathematical model or statistical model
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/166 concerning the amount of transmission errors, e.g. bit error rate [BER]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/196 being specially adapted for the computation of encoding parameters, e.g. by averaging previously computed encoding parameters processing of motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/34 Scalability techniques involving progressive bit-plane based encoding of the enhancement layer, e.g. fine granular scalability [FGS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/507 using conditional replenishment

Abstract

An apparatus for encoding an image. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises a hash function module for determining changes to a plurality of scan blocks of an image; an encoder module, coupled to the hash function module, for encoding each scan block in the plurality of scan blocks as layers of increasing quality; and selecting specific scan blocks having a specific quality layer for transmission in response to the hash function module change determination.

Claims

1. An apparatus for encoding an image comprising:

a hash function module for determining changes to a plurality of scan blocks of an image;

an encoder module, coupled to the hash function module, for encoding each scan block in the plurality of scan blocks as layers of increasing quality and

selecting specific scan blocks having a specific quality layer for transmission in response to the hash function module change determination; and

a network interface, coupled to the encoder module, for transmitting, via a computer network, encodings of the specific scan blocks.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the network interface is enabled for determining available bandwidth for transmitting each scan block, and wherein the encoder module alters the scan block selection in response to the available bandwidth.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a pixel capture module, coupled to the hash function module and the encoder module, for capturing the plurality of scan blocks from the image.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the image is a video signal comprising a Digital Visual Interface (DVI) signal or a DISPLAYPORT signal.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hash function module calculates and compares current scan block hash code values with previous scan block hash code values to determine changes to the plurality of scan blocks.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the encoder module encodes the image in accordance with at least one of encoding quality information, encoding parameters, build state information or block persistence information.