Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Dalibor Kukoleca

Regis J Crinon

Humayun Mukhtar Khan

Wei Zhong

Tim M Moore

Danny Levin

Timothy Mark Moore

Anton W Krantz

Warren Vincent Barkley

Jiannan Zheng

Guo-Wei Shieh

Michael R VanBuskirk

Zong Zong Yuan

Humayun M Khan

Procedures for identifying clients in an audio event are described. In an example, a media server may order clients providing audio based on the input level. An identifier may be associated with the client for identifying the client providing input within the event. The ordered clients may be included in a list which may be inserted into a packet header carrying the audio content.

Active speaker identification

A video conference cross-links at least a portion of the clients for point to point communication while still using a video conference server. The video conference server continues to manage some aspects of the video conference for the cross-linked clients and may be configured to perform audio/video processing for some of the clients in a video conference. For example, the video conference server may perform audio/video processing and routing of streams for clients that do not have the capabilities to perform the processing directly. Clients that are able to process their audio/video needs may directly connect to other clients through cross-links while still using the video conference server for management.

Combining direct and routed communication in a video conference

A conference server may request a key frame from a conference participant in response to determining that the conference participant should become a most active participant, and the conference server may make the conference participant the most active participant in response to receiving the key frame from the conference participant.

Performance enhancements for video conferencing

A communications system provides a media sender object and a media receiver object that provide an interface between a media stack and an application. The application can use the media sender object to send content to a source media stack and the media receiver object to receive content from a sink media stack. The application programming interface of the media sender object and the media receiver object provides functions for registering and un-registering buffers for storing and receiving content. When a source media stack is ready to send content, it invokes each registered source to collect content to be sent. When a sink media stack has received content, it invokes each registered sink to provide the received content. An application interfaces with a media sender object and a media receiver object to add content to a channel or to receive content from a channel.

Method and system for providing an interface through which an application can access a media stack

Systems, methods, and/or techniques ('tools') are described that sort speakers in a network-enabled conference. In some cases, this sorted list of speakers indicates which speaker is dominant. With this sorted list, a participant's communication device may provide context about the speakers. In some cases a participant's communication device has a display that presents real-time video of the speakers or other visual indicia, such as each or the most dominant speaker's name, picture, title, or location. These and other context about speakers may help participants better understand discussions in network-enabled conferences.

Sorting speakers in a network-enabled conference

A conference system provides a routing table that specifies which sinks are connected to which sources. When the conference system receives the content from the video source, it routes the content to the video sink. When the conference type is full mix, the hub computer system is responsible for mixing the content received from the various endpoints and sending the mixed content to the endpoints. When the conference system receives content from various endpoints, it determines which sinks are to receive content from which sources based on the routing table. For each unique combination of sources that a sink is to receive, the conference system mixes the content from that unique combination of sources. The conference system then sends the mixed content to the sinks that are to receive that unique combination. The conference system generates a routing table that identifies the connections between the sinks and sources of a conference to track the unique combinations.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Dalibor Kukoleca