Broadcom Corporation

Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited

Olive Tao

Alexander Garland MacInnis

Xiaodong Xie

Wade Keith Wan

Ramkumar Prakasam

Waqar Ahmad

Techniques described herein are directed to the inline switching of video and/or audio codecs for video and/or audio data. A first device encodes data that includes portion(s) that are encoded using a first codec and portion(s) that are encoded using a second codec. The encoder may further encode supplemental information in the data. The supplemental information is used by the decoder to determine a transition between the first and second portion(s). The decoder can thus anticipate the transition and properly switch the codec used to decode the data in real-time. Techniques described herein are also directed to the splicing of locally-stored content into content received from a remotely-located source. For example, targeted advertisements that are stored locally may be played back during commercial breaks of live content. The locally-stored targeted advertisements may replace the commercials provided via the remotely-located source.

Inline codec switching

A system, method, and apparatus for decoding a bitstream are presented herein. Symbols in the bitstream are replaced with intermediate symbols by a preprocessor. In a video decoder, a video decompression engine is used to provide decoded frames at a constant rate. However, the frames are encoded as pictures with widely varying amounts of data in a bitstream. A preprocessor replaces symbols with intermediate symbols providing the same information in a different format. The intermediate symbols are preferably simpler for decoding.

System and method for replacing bitstream symbols with intermediate symbols

A CABAC decoding engine is devised to cover all aspects of decoding all CABAC-coded syntax elements for AVC. This CABAC decoding engine acts like a Co-processor to another Processor (CPU), which guides the decoding of the bit stream. The CABAC decoding engine or Co-processor has the following highlights: unique context model retrieving and storing method is developed to allow a complete syntax element to be decoded in one hardware (H/W) execution cycle (not necessarily one clock cycle.); H/W assisted approach is provided to accelerate context model initialization; H/W based approach is incorporated to allow fast de-binarization; H/W based approach is provided to allow a block of syntax elements to be decoded instead of one by one; and dedicated H/W accelerators are incorporated to decode special syntax elements.

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Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Olive Tao