Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Webtv Networks, Inc.

Louis F Coffin, Iii

James Lundblad

James Armand Baldwin

John Allen Tardif

Michael G Love

Jack A Scheuer

Dan Q Tu

Deepak Prakash

Victor Tirva

Geroncio G Galicia

Paul B Brown

A home satellite receiving system employs a transmodulating outdoor unit (ODU) that tunes to multiple signals, demodulates those signals into streams of data packets, and filters the streams of data packets to select data packets pertaining to viewer-specified programs. The ODU then constructs an integrated bitstream from the selected data packets and modulates that bitstream for transmission to an indoor IRD. This allows transfer of multiple programs from different satellite sources to the indoor IRD over a single coaxial cable. The indoor IRD reconstructs the packet stream timing for the viewer-specified programs from the integrated bitstream.

Satellite receiving system with transmodulating outdoor unit

Methods and systems for processing a single sub-channel that includes two or more combined channels. Using intermediate frequency sub-sampling, two or more channels from a broad band signal are combined into a single sub-channel for further analog and digital processing. Each of the two or more channels is down converted to an intermediate frequency, filtered to remove certain undesired channels, and combined such that the two or more channels are adjacent to each other. A digital representation of the sub-channel is produced from the combined intermediate frequency channels. Each channel within the digital representation is down converted to baseband, and the in-phase and quadrature components are separated from each other. Compared to one direct down conversion technique, intermediate frequency sub-sampling as described in the application may reduce the number of analog to digital converters and control amplifiers used in analog processing by a factor of four.

Simultaneous tuning of multiple channels using intermediate frequency sub-sampling

A PC-based personal video recorder (PVR) system enables recordation of video content on a general-purpose computer in a way that the computer is unable to perceptively display the recorded content, but is able to playback and distribute the content to a decoder box (e.g., set-top box) for display on a television. In one implementation, the general-purpose computer is equipped with a personal video recorder (PVR) card having a video tuner, a network connection, and scrambling capabilities. The PVR card is configured to receive video content and produce compressed digital video. The card scrambles the video content and stores it in the computer's memory. The scrambled video content is in a form that cannot be perceptibly displayed by the computer. During playback, the PVR card retrieves the scrambled video content from the memory, descrambles it, and outputs the video content to the decoder box for playback on the television.

PC-based personal video recorder

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

In an implementation of a display source divider, a video generation system generates a video display source that includes display data for multiple display regions on a display device. For example, a gaming system generates a video display source that includes display data partitioned display, where each region of the partitioned display corresponds to a different player of the gaming system. A display source divider receives the video display source and generates multiple video streams each corresponding to a different display region of the partitioned display.

Display source divider

In an implementation of a display source divider, a video generation system generates a video display source that includes display data for multiple display regions on a display device. For example, a gaming system generates a video display source that includes display data for a partitioned display, where each region of the partitioned display corresponds to a different player of the gaming system. A display source divider receives the video display source and generates multiple video streams each corresponding to a different display region of the partitioned display.

In an implementation of a display source divider, a video generation system generates a video display source that includes display data for multiple display regions which include left eye display regions and right eye display regions of head display devices. For example, a gaming system generates a video display source that includes display data for left eye display regions and right eye display regions of head display devices that each correspond to a different player of the gaming system. A display source divider receives the video display source and generates a left eye display video stream and an associated right eye display video stream for each of the head display devices.

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 first signal component is received having a first signal strength and a second signal component is received having a second signal strength. A difference is identified between the first signal strength and the second signal strength. A determination is made as to whether the difference between the first signal strength and the second signal strength exceeds a threshold. If the difference between the first signal strength and the second signal strength exceeds a threshold, the first signal strength is adjusted to reduce the difference between the first signal strength and the second signal strength.

Method and apparatus for adjusting signal component strength

A luminance component of a video signal is modulated in a first frequency band. A first chrominance component of the video signal is modulated in a second frequency band and is mixed with an audio component. A second chrominance component of the video signal is modulated in a third frequency band. The modulated luminance component, the first modulated chrominance component, and the second modulated chrominance component are then transmitted across a communication link.

Method and apparatus for modulating video signals

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

Louis F Coffin, Iii