Queueing events in an interactive media environment

• US 20070006233A1
• Filed: 02/09/2006
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Colle, Olivier, Mazhar, Khurshed, Yovin, John, Freeman, Arthur, Finger, James
• Granted Patent: US 8,656,268 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

An arrangement is provided where all applications in an interactive media environment run on a single application thread in a media player. Event queues are utilized to schedule the application thread'"'"'s processing of workitems corresponding to events that occur in the environment. Workitems include methods to be invoked when the workitem is processed and arguments for the method. Workitems further include a begin time and an end time and are ordered in the event queue first by begin time followed by the order in which they were inserted into the queue. The application thread marks workitems whose begin times corresponds to the current or previous time and then processes marked workitems from the queue in order. Such processing is committed so that once the application thread begins processing of a workitem it does not stop. Workitems are dropped from the event queue if their end times have been passed.

Claims

1. A method to manage processing of workitems corresponding to events that occur in an interactive media environment where time is counted using a sequence of ticks, the method comprising the steps of:

marking workitems disposed in an event queue whereby workitems having a begin time that is at a current tick or before the current tick are marked;

processing marked workitems that have an end time that is after the current tick; and

dropping from the event queue marked workitems having an end time that is before the current tick.

2. The method of claim 1 in which workitems represent one or more events fired by an interactive media application.

3. The method of claim 2 in which the one or more events are fired by a markup in the interactive media application

4. The method of claim 2 in which the one or more events are fired by a script in the interactive media application.

5. The method of claim 1 in which workitems represent one or more events generated by an interactive media player.

6. The method of claim 1 in which workitems represent one or more events fired by user interaction in the interactive media environment.

7. An application scheduler arranged to manage processing of workitems corresponding to events occurring in an interactive media environment where time is counted using a sequence of ticks, each of the workitems having a timestamp that includes a begin time and an end time, the application scheduler comprising:

a event queue for queuing the workitems, the event queue having a head end and a tail end and arranged so that workitems are processed from the head end of the event queue; and

an application thread arranged for

marking workitems whose begin time corresponds to a current tick or a previous tick,

processing marked workitems, and

inserting workitems associated with new events that occur during the processing at the tail end of the event queue so that they follow after marked workitems.

8. The application scheduler of claim 7 wherein the inserting is performed irregardless of a timestamp for the new events.

9. The application scheduler of claim 7 where each workitem includes a field for indicating a method to be invoked and arguments for the method.

10. The application scheduler of claim 7 where each workitem includes a clock selector field that indicates whether the timestamp is measured in title time, page time or application time.

11. The application scheduler of claim 7 where the application thread drops all workitems from the event queue when an application running in the interactive media environment reloads its page.

12. The application scheduler of claim 7 where all applications in the interactive media environment run on the same thread of a playback engine.

13. A computer-readable medium, which when executed by one or more processors disposed in an electronic device, performs a method to manage processing of work items associated with repetitive events and non-repetitive events that occur in an interactive media environment, each workitem having a timestamp that includes at least a begin time, the method comprising the steps of:

ordering workitems in an event queue by begin time followed by entry time into the event queue;

processing workitems from the event queue in order and on a committed basis so that an event associated with a processed workitem is handled before processing is terminated; and

dropping only workitems from the event queue that are associated with repetitive events.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 where the repetitive event is a periodic event.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 where the periodic event is represented by a workitem having an endtime equal to a next scheduled begin time.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 where the ordering is performed during insertion of workitems into the event queue.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 where the ordering is performed during extraction of workitems from the queue.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including the further step of inserting a workitem into the event queue for calling a markup engine in an interactive media application to evaluate timing changes.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 including the further step of inserting a workitem into the event queue for calling a markup engine in an interactive media application to reflow a markup in an interactive media application and render the markup on a display device.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 in which time is counted in the interactive media environment using a sequence of ticks and the inserted workitem is processed last in each tick.