Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Craig M Dowell

Steven P Levi

William J Bolosky

Richard F Rashid

Robert P Fitzgerald

Jan De Rie

Mark Daniel VanAntwerp

Chadd B Knowlton

Geoffrey T Dunbar

Adam B Glass

George H Shaw

James L Green

A wire protocol provides message formats for creating multiple network connections between a media server and a client. These multiple network connections may include a control link connection for passing control information and a data funnel connection for passing data of multiple media. The data funnel connection may be a multipoint-to-point connection that connects multiple data servers with the client. The protocol facilitates multiple requests being concurrently outstanding and asynchronous processing of requests. The protocol is designed to exist on top of a transport protocol layer.

Wire protocol for a media server system

An active stream format is defined and adopted for a logical structure that encapsulates multiple data streams. The data streams may be of different media. The data of the data streams is partitioned into packets that are suitable for transmission over a transport medium. The packets may include error correcting information. The packets may also include clock licenses for dictating the advancement of a clock when the data streams are rendered. The format of ASF facilitates flexibility and choice of packet size and in specifying maximum bit rate at which data may be rendered. Error concealment strategies may be employed in the packetization of data to distribute portions of samples to multiple packets. Property information may be replicated and stored in separate packets to enhance its error tolerance. The format facilitates dynamic definition of media types and the packetization of data in such dynamically defined data types within the format.

Active stream format for holding multiple media streams

A system and method for configuring image data, such as data suitable for JPEG compression, into a format that can be streamed and displayed even if part of the image is lost in transmission. The image data is scrambled and compressed into restartable segments of compressed data. After compression, the data is packetized, with segment restart information written into headers accompanying the payload in each packet. When the packets arrive, they are parsed to determine from their restart information which restart segments have arrived. Each restart segment that has arrived is sent to an image decompressor, resulting in a scrambled bitmap image, having gaps wherever data segments were lost. The image is then unscrambled, resulting in small, isolated blocks of missing data psuedo-randomly dispersed throughout the image. Fill-in techniques from the surrounding pixels further improve the perceived image quality.

Loss tolerant compressed image data

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Craig M Dowell