Ati Technologies Ulc

Ati Technologies Inc.

Kenneth Man

Henry Hing Law

Daniel W Wong

Milivoje M Aleksic

Jeffrey Gongxian Cheng

Daniel Wong

Peter Cao

Geoffrey Park

Daniel Wai-Him Wong

Catalin Beju

Ivan Wong-Yin Yang

Iouri Kiselev

An efficient method of compositing planes onto a target surface using a computing device with graphics processing capability is disclosed. The method includes partitioning the target surface, on which planes are composited, into partitions. Each one of the partitions contains connected pixels to be formed by compositing an identical subset of the planes to be composited. Each partition is associated with a corresponding subset of the planes. Each partition and its corresponding set of associated planes are then provided to a graphics processor for composition, using exemplary software components including an application programming interface, a library and device driver software. An image is formed on the target surface by compositing each partition. Using the disclosed method, a single pass through stages of the graphics pipeline for the graphics processor is sufficient to composite multiple planes to form an image on the target surface.

System and method for efficient digital video composition

The present disclosure discusses methods and apparatus for controlling the video playback in a video playback system. In particular, a method for controlling video playback includes receiving a flip call to display video data from a flip queue buffer. Processing of the video data is then initiated. Flip acknowledgement information is issued in response to receiving the flip call information and prior to completion of the processing of video data to be displayed from the flip queue buffer. By issuing flip acknowledgement information regardless of whether the processing of the video data has been completed, video flip calls can continue to be issued at a constant rate and other processing can continue without waiting, thus resulting in better and smoother video playback and economizing processing resources. Additionally, a decision whether or not to drop a particular video frame is made based on whether a flip queue buffer from a predetermined number of flip queue buffers is available. The disclosed apparatus includes a flip manager, such as under the control of a driver, that controls the timing of video frame flips, rather than an application controlling the timing.

Methods and apparatus for controlling video playback

A method and system for prevention of unauthorized access to multimedia data are disclosed herein. A tamper-resistant system having a software driver, a peripheral device, and a system memory is used to encrypt sensitive routines used by the software driver. The software driver is used to interface between one component of the system, such as a processor, and a peripheral device, such as a graphics chip. The driver incorporates one or more sensitive routines, that if divulged, could possibly allow an unauthorized party access to data processed by the software driver. Accordingly, in one embodiment, the sensitive routines are stored in an encrypted format with the driver. To access a sensitive routine, the driver submits the associated encrypted routine to the peripheral device, as well as a decryption method, if desired, where it is decrypted and stored in a plaintext format in a location, such as system memory, accessible to both the driver and the peripheral device. The driver can then use the plaintext routine to process the data. When finished processing the data, the plaintext routine can be re-encrypted using one or more of a variety of encryption methods and stored with the driver. Any remaining copies of the plaintext routine can be removed from the system. By encrypting the sensitive routines at all times other than when in immediate use, the system can effectively prevent an unauthorized party from accessing data based on knowledge about the sensitive routine. In addition, the use of the hardware of the peripheral device to encrypt/decrypt the sensitive routines provides an additional barrier to an unauthorized party.

System for preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data and a method thereof

A video playback circuit receives flip call information and vertical synchronization information, and in response determines a pause mode and a playback mode. Flip call information, as is known in the art, provides an indication for flipping between a front buffer and a back buffer, in order to facilitate rendering into one buffer while rasterizing out of the other buffer. Vertical synchronization information describes the completion of rasterizing an image onto a display, and often occurs at periodic intervals, e.g., 60 Hz, 100 Hz. The video playback circuit further includes a pause/playback-based frame buffer pointer information generator. The pause/playback-based frame buffer pointer information generator generates unfiltered frame buffer pointer information when in the pause mode. Otherwise, the pause/playback-based frame buffer pointer information generator generates filtered frame buffer pointer information when in the playback mode. The unfiltered frame buffer pointer information indicates rasterization of unfiltered rasterization data from the frame buffer during the pause mode. Similarly, the filtered frame buffer pointer information indicates rasterization of filtered rasterization data from the frame buffer when in the playback mode.

Video playback method and apparatus

A system and method for handling errors is provided. Errors related to the processing and storage of inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) image data cause hardware to become stalled. Stalled hardware may result in multiple image frames being dropped or lost during video playback. To avoid the stalling of hardware, the hardware is used to analyze the data being processed. Data being stored may be analyzed to determine if any error-characteristics, such as overflow or underflow, are present in the storing of the data. The data is manipulated to avoid stalling due to the error-characteristics.

System for handling errors related to IDCT data and method thereof

Methods and systems are provided for encrypting data from a plurality of multimedia devices. A driver initiates authentication for the plurality of multimedia applications. The driver assigns a key registers to each of the applications, based on available key registers. The applications use generated encryption key values to send data to be decrypted by their assigned key registers. The driver notifies video processing hardware of encryption seed keys to determine the generated encryption key values and hardware stores the value of corresponding decryption keys the assigned key registers. Each register can be used to exclusively decrypt data from an application of the plurality of applications. The driver directs the encrypted data from the applications to the video processing hardware. The video processing hardware decrypts the data and processes it into image data accordingly.

Growing community of inventors

North York, Canada

Kenneth Man