Network displays and method of their operation

• US 8,375,301 B2
• Filed: 07/17/2006
• Issued: 02/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Barco NV
• Original Assignee: Barco NV
• Inventors: Nuyttens, Geert, Dewaele, Ronny
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo, Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHUONG, TRUC T
• Application Number:
  US11/487,357
• Publication Number:
  US 20070033289A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,402 Days
• Field of Search: 715717-726
• US Class Current: 715/717
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1446 display composed of modules, e.g. video walls
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/02 Handling of images in compressed format, e.g. JPEG, MPEG
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/12 Picture reproducers H04N9/11 takes precedence

Abstract

A digital networked studio and the needed software services to allow the use of the system for monitoring the creation and distribution processes of real-time created content is described.

Distribution problems are solved using an off-the-shelf network, e.g. using an IP based or similar data protocol, such as an IP network based distributed system architecture to bring the display controller functionality closer to the source and to replace proprietary busses used for transporting video, audio, RGB, graphical information and/or metadata with building blocks based on standard IP and compression technologies. A characteristic of such a network is to use unicast, multicast and/or broadcast technologies (based on network addresses) and to route data from one address to another. The network provides redundancy in case any of the digital generation units.

Claims

1. A display system for displaying streaming image data, comprising:

display generator units each comprising a graphical processor unit and a memory,

at least one decoding unit providing decoded signals of images to be displayed over a plurality of display units to the graphical processor unit for rendering,

a shared resource network linking the display generator units, the shared resource network receiving a plurality of input source signals encoding the images to be displayed over a plurality of display units, the shared resource network distributing the input source signals to the plurality of display units via the at least one decoding unit and via the display generator units,

one input of each display unit being connected to a respective one of the display generator units, the display units being for display of at least some of the images encoded in the input source signals, at least some of the display units being arranged side-by-side to form a multi-head display,

wherein each display generator unit stores a configuration document, the configuration document including;

a definition of a task for each of said display generator unit linked by the shared resource network,

a description of all images to be displayed on each of the plurality of display units, and

data related to location of all said images to be displayed over a plurality of display units and encoded by the input source signals received by the shared resource network,

wherein each of the display generator units independently performs the task defined in the configuration document to display the images over the plurality of display units, and

wherein the display units are further capable of displaying metadata that is embedded in or related to the displayed images.

2. A display system according to claim 1, wherein each display generator unit has a filter to filter out tasks assigned to that display generator unit.

3. A display system according to claim 1, wherein the configuration document contains a tagged mark-up language description of the image to be displayed.

4. A display system according to claim 1, furthermore comprising a control unit for controlling distribution of the configuration document to the display generator units.

5. A display system according to claim 1, wherein the graphical processor unit of the display generator units comprises a gaming video processor for rendering the images to be displayed.

6. A display system according to claim 1, wherein the display generator unit comprises local synchronisation means for synchronising operations within a display generator unit.

7. A display system according to claim 1, furthermore comprising global synchronisation means for synchronising operation of a plurality of display generator units.

8. A display system according to claim 1, where there is a single configuration document for all images to be displayed on the plurality of display units.

9. A display system according to claim 1, furthermore comprising encoders for encoding image data to be displayed so as to generate the input source signals.

10. A display system according to claim 9, wherein the encoders comprise coder logic for compressing data related to images to be displayed.

11. A display system according to claim 10, wherein the codec logic is JPEG2000 logic.

12. A display system according to claim 1, wherein each display generator unit subscribes to sources of image data to be displayed.

13. A display system according to claim 1, wherein the display generator units comprise decoder logic for decompressing data related to images to be displayed.

14. A display system according to claim 13, wherein the decoder logic is JPEG2000 logic.

15. A display system according to claim 1, wherein the display generator units furthermore comprise means of reading multimedia information for filling it into the data stream of the image to be displayed.

16. A display system according to claim 1, wherein there is at least one redundant display generator unit more than the number of display generator units required to provide the image data for the display units,

wherein each display unit has a first and a second input, the first input being for connection to a display generator unit, and the second input being for linking to the at least one redundant display generator unit, each display unit furthermore having a switch for switching between the first and second input.

17. A display system according to claim 1, wherein a display generator unit is integrated into a display unit.

30. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing a computer program product comprising code that when executed on a processing engine provides the display system according to claim 1.

18. A method for displaying streaming image data in a system having display generator units each comprising a processing means and a memory,

a shared resource network linking the display generator units, the shared resource network receiving a plurality of input source signals encoding images to be displayed over a plurality of display units,

one input of each display unit being connected to a respective display generator unit, the display units being for display of at least some of the images encoded in the input source signals, at least some of the display units being arranged side-by-side to form a multi-head display, the method comprising:

distributing a single configuration document to all of the display generator units, the configuration document including;

a definition of a task for each of said display generator unit linked by the shared resource network,

a description of all images to be displayed on each of the plurality of display units, and

data related to location of all said images to be displayed over a plurality of display units and encoded by the input source signals, storing the configuration document within each of the display generators,

performing the task defined in the configuration document independently by each display generator unit,

rendering different parts of the images to be displayed over the plurality of display units in parallel by each display generator unit, and

displaying by the display units metadata that is embedded in or related to the displayed images.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein each display generator unit filters out tasks assigned to that display generator unit.

20. The method according to claim 18, wherein the configuration document contains a tagged mark-up language description of the image to be displayed.

21. The method of claim 18, further comprising rendering the images to be displayed in the display generator units.

22. The method according to claim 18, further comprising synchronising operations within a display generator unit.

23. The method according to claim 18, furthermore comprising synchronising operation of a plurality of display generator units.

24. The method according to claim 18, furthermore comprising encoding image data to be displayed so as to generate the input source signals.

25. The method according to claim 24, wherein the encoding codec logic is a JPEG2000 logic.

26. The method according to claim 18, wherein the display generator units decodes data related to images to be displayed.

27. The method according to claim 26, wherein the decoder logic is JPEG2000 logic.

28. The method to claim 18, further comprising the display generator units reading multimedia information for filling it into the data stream of the image to be displayed.

29. The method according to claim 18, wherein there is at least one redundant display generator unit more than the number of display generator units required to provide the image data for the display units, and each display unit has a first and a second input, the first input being for connection to a display generator unit, and the second input being for linking to the at least one redundant display generator unit, the method comprising switching between the first and second input.

31. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing a computer program product comprising code that when executed on a processing engine executes the method steps of claim 18.