System and Related Methods for Reducing Memory Requirements of a Media Processing System

• US 20060129748A1
• Filed: 01/30/2006
• Published: 06/15/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rudolph, Eric H., Miller, Daniel J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,237,244 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/544 Buffers; Shared memory; Pipes

Abstract

A method of generating a development project including at least a matrix switch and one or more adjacent objects is presented comprising establishing an initial rendering of the development project, and negotiating buffer size and attributes between an input/output coupling the matrix switch to an input/output of the adjacent objects, wherein the negotiated buffer is utilized to communicate information between the input/output of the matrix switch and the input/output of the adjacent object by sharing information via the shared buffer.

Claims

8. A computer-implemented development system comprising:

one or more processing chains; and

a matrix switch, coupled to the one or more processing chains, to recursively pass content received from the one or more processing chains through one or more processing objects to implement a development project, wherein the matrix switch negotiates buffer size and attributes between the matrix switch and adjacent objects, wherein the negotiated buffers are utilized to communicate media content between the matrix switch and adjacent buffers without requiring a buffer copy operation.

1. A computer-implemented method of generating a development comprising:

providing a matrix switch and one or more adjacent objects;

establishing an initial rendering of the development project; and

negotiating buffer size and attribute characteristics between an input/output of the matrix switch and an input/output of adjacent objects, wherein negotiated buffers are utilized to communicate media content between the matrix switch and adjacent buffers by sharing a common buffer between inputs and outputs.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising

modifying input/output associations between objects in the initial rendering of the development project based at least in part on the negotiation.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein input/output associations are communicative connections through one or more buffers.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the initial rendering of the development project included a separate buffer for each input and output of each object within the project, some of which are replaced with a single buffer shared between select input(s) and output(s) based, at least in part, on the negotiation.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein memory copy operations are utilized to communication information to/from input(s) and/or output(s) of the matrix switch for which the switch is not the allocator.

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

7. A computing system comprising:

a storage medium having stored therein 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 development system according to claim 8, wherein each of the objects comprising the one or more processing chains attempt to negotiate buffer size and attribute characteristics in order to facilitate a shared buffer for communicating information between the objects of the processing chain.

10. A development system according to claim 9, wherein the objects establish shared buffers between an input of one object and the output of an upstream object upon negotiating mutually acceptable buffer size and attribute characteristics.

11. A development system according to claim 8, wherein the development project is established by a render engine, exposed from an operating system executing on a computing system implementing the development system.

12. A development system according to claim 11, wherein the render engine facilitates negotiation between objects of the processing chains of buffer size and attribute requirements, and establishes a shared buffer for communicating content between objects when an agreement as to the requirements is achieved.

13. A matrix switch object embodied on a computer-readable media, the matrix switch object comprising:

a dynamically determined number of inputs to receive content from one or more processing chains; and

a dynamically determined number of outputs, selectively coupling one or more of the dynamically determined inputs to one or more of the dynamically determined outputs, wherein a matrix switch negotiates with objects coupled to each of the dynamically determined inputs and outputs for buffer size and attribute requirements to facilitate communication between objects and within the matrix switch using a shared buffer of agreed upon size and attribute characteristics.

14. A matrix switch object according to claim 12, wherein communication between the input/output of the matrix switch and any other input/output, internal or external to the matrix switch is performed using a memory copy operation.

15. A matrix switch according to claim 12, wherein matrix switch identifies buffer size and attribute requirements of all objects coupled to an input/output of the matrix switch, and attempts to negotiate a common buffer size and attribute requirement for all switch input(s) and output(s).

16. A matrix switch according to claim 12, further comprising a plurality of buffers, shared between the dynamically determined inputs and the dynamically determined outputs to buffer processed media content for subsequent use by objects coupled to the matrix switch.

13-1. A matrix switch object according to claim 12, wherein an input/output coupling the object to the input/output of the matrix switch each have an independent buffer, wherein communication occurs between the object and the matrix switch by copying content from one buffer to another buffer.