Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

James Lundblad

Louis F Coffin, Iii

James Armand Baldwin

Andrew Walters

J Wiltse Carpenter

Ramaneek Khanna

Deepak Prakash

Victor Tirva

Paul B Brown

Geroncio G Galicia

Designed for use with widescreen TVs or high-end TVs with a mode for accommodating anamorphic programs, an EPG client is equipped with an electronic program guide (EPG) and a letterbox-to-anamorphic converter. The EPG client evaluates EPG data to determine whether programs are in the letterbox format. When a letterboxed program is selected for viewing, the EPG client vertically stretches the program by a ratio of M/N, where M&#x3e;N (e.g., 4/3), to convert the program from the letterbox format to an anamorphic format prior to delivery to the television. The converted anamorphic program is output to the television, where it is horizontally expanded to fit the screen.

EPG-conditioned letterbox-to-anamorphic conversion

A digital receiver contains a local video clock that controls the video presentation speed and a local audio clock that controls the audio presentation speed separately and independently of the video presentation speed. To control the video presentation speed, a comparator compares a program clock reference in a video packet with a local time. A video clock controller then speeds up or slows down the video clock as needed to be back on schedule. To control the audio presentation speed, a comparator compares a program clock reference in an audio packet with the local time. An audio clock controller then speeds up or slows down the audio clock as needed to be back on schedule.

Methods and systems for independently controlling the presentation speed of digital video frames and digital audio samples

A system receives a transport stream containing video data and audio data. A determination is made regarding the time required to process the video data contained in the transport stream and the time required to process the audio data contained in the transport stream. The system then determines a difference in time to process the video contained in the transport stream as compared to the audio data contained in the transport stream. Presentation of the audio data is delayed by this difference in time to synchronize presentation of the audio data with presentation of the video data.

Method and apparatus for synchronizing audio and video data

Video graphics methods and systems can reduce objectionable ringing associated with composited user interface elements and video content, while at the same time preserve, to a desirable degree, the fidelity of the video content. In at least some embodiments, after the user interface elements are created, they are pre-filtered, before compositing, in a particular way that is designed to reduce undesirable ringing. Further, in at least some embodiments, during the compositing process, the left and right edges of the user interface elements are treated in a manner that is designed to reduce the ringing that would otherwise be induced by the left and right edges respectively.

Methods and systems for reducing ringing in composited user interface elements

A method and apparatus for managing error/status information generated in the demultiplexing, processing, and handling of data packets from a video transport stream. Error/status information is organized into control fields of error/status packets. The error/status packets are sent to dedicated error/status buffers of bulk system memory where they can be accessed by a system processor during the reconfiguration and decoding of video programming.

Error/status information management

A processing apparatus for processing multiple video programs from one or more transport streams. The processing apparatus has a transport processing circuit that includes multiple transport processor units. The transport processor units utilize a common transport processor memory unit having demux context entries containing processing and hardware state information for packet types. Each transport processor unit includes a transport interface for identifying data packets to be acquired from the transport stream, a demultiplexing processor for processing the acquired data packets, and a demultiplexing DMA unit for memory handling operations of the processed data packets. Index chaining allows the transport processor units to access information from the transport processor memory unit. The method uses indices to access demux context entries from the transport processor memory unit. Related DMA indices are used to access memory handling information from the transport processor memory unit.

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

James Lundblad