Interface and related methods for reducing source accesses in a development system

• US 20040135803A1
• Filed: 12/26/2003
• Published: 07/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Daniel J. Miller, Eric H. Rudolph
• Inventors: Rudolph, Eric H., Miller, Daniel J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,581,185 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/721
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence

Abstract

A method of generating a filter graph of a development project is presented comprising identifying a plurality of source clips comprising the development project, wherein each source clip represents an access to a source, and combining two or more accesses for two or more source clips into a single access if the two or more source clips satisfy one or more criteria.

Claims

1. A method of generating a development project, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of source clips comprising the development project, wherein each source clip represents an access to a source; and

combining two or more accesses for two or more source clips into a single access if the two or more source clips satisfy one or more criteria.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the one or more criteria include one or more of the clips are source time aligned, the clips are project time aligned, and the clips will share a common processing chain.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein to be source time aligned, the two clips are adjacent to one another in the source.

4. A method according to claim 2, wherein to be project time aligned, a request for the two clips must appear adjacent to one another in the development project.

5. A method according to claim 2, wherein to share a common processing chain, the two clips must contain identical media types requiring identical pre-processing by the development project.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein a render engine of a media processing system analyzes each of a plurality of source calls to identify calls to a common source, and to combine source clip accesses wherever possible.

7. A storage medium comprising a plurality of executable instructions which, when executed, implement a method according to claim 1.

8. A computing system comprising:

a storage medium comprising a plurality of executable instructions; and

an execution unit, coupled to the storage medium, to execute at least a subset of the plurality of executable instructions to implement a method according to claim 1.

9. A method of generating a development project, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of source clips comprising the development project, wherein each source clip represents an access to a source;

combining two or more accesses for two or more source clips into a single access if the two or more source clips satisfy one or more criteria, and further comprising;

generating a filter graph representation of the development project, wherein a number of invoked instances of the source is reduced by combining source accesses where possible.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein if the clips do not satisfy the one or more criteria, a render engine will generate a separate source chain for each of the uncombinable accesses, requiring a separate simultaneous instances of the source to be invoked with in the filter graph.