Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Alan L Bridgewater

Ross Garrett Cutler

Avronil Bhattacharjee

Kapil Sharma

Stella Yick Chan

Shruti Kasetty

Jayendran Srinivasan

Quinn Hawkins

Lei Tan

Sumeet Bawa

Ryan Farmer

Imad Yanni

Shi Lu

William A Ridmann

The present panoramic video technique embodied in the unified client provides panoramic video and other data from various sources for live web-based conferencing applications. In one embodiment, the panoramic video is provided by a panoramic collaboration and communication device, termed a RoundTable Device (RTD). The RTD is a collaboration tool with a 360-degree camera and a microphone or microphone array that, together with the unified client, delivers an immersive conferencing experience that extends the meeting room across multiple locations. This enables live network meeting scenarios that were not possible before.

Panoramic video in a live meeting client

A client device selectively establishes connections between selected client communication components and corresponding server communication components. The client device receives data from the corresponding server communication components via the connections between the selected client communication components and the server communication components. The data received via different ones of the connections is associated with a different content stream of a teleconference. During the teleconference, a given connection is suspended. When the given connection is suspended, the client computing device continues to receive data via connections other than the given connection.

Selective connection between corresponding communication components involved in a teleconference

Audio and video frames are synchronized by hashing an audio frame at a sender and combining the resultant hash value with the video frame. The audio frame is transmitted over an audio network, such as a telephone network, and the video frame is transmitted over a digital network, such as an intranet. The audio frame may be combined with additional audio signals from an audio bridge. The receiver receives the audio signal from the audio bridge and performs the same hash function on the mixed signal as was performed on the original signal. The receiver correlates the hash value on the mixed signal with the hash value included with the video frame (wherein the video frame is one of several video frames buffered by the receiver). The receiver can thus identify the video frame that corresponds to the audio frame and render them simultaneously.

Audio/video synchronization using audio hashing

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Bothell, WA, United States of America

Alan L Bridgewater