Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Neiversan Networks Co. LLC

Other

Thomas Walter Getzinger

Henrique Sarmento Malvar

Lucia Darsa

Robert D Young

Sabrina Boler

Karen L Baker

Jon Vincent

Robert E Gruhl

Lord Nigel Featherston

Eric Paul Filer

Nimesh I Amin

Andrew Dadi

Fabian Toader

Robert Charles Aldinger

Dennis M Lee

Akhil Kaza

In a low-power device a runtime hands video capture and other markup language video objects to a video service, which renders them onto a shared surface. An application-specific compositor manipulates the shared surface, e.g., by texture wrapping or animation. A system compositor composites the manipulated shared surface with other data, such as rendered frames from other application-specific compositors and/or computer generated text. The device then displays the attendant rendered, manipulated, and composited video frames. In some cases, only a single copy of the shared surface is utilized. When the video object's shape, alignment, and opacity satisfy predetermined criteria, the video service renders the video object onto the shared surface using a hardware scaler; otherwise, rendering is done without using the hardware scaler.

Shared surface hardware-sensitive composited video

A quality level determining the extent to which each image file is compressed is automatically computed for each image file in a set to ensure that the total size of the compressed image files does not exceed a predefined limit. The compressed size of each image file is initially determined when compressed at a predefined minimum acceptable level and at a nominal level. The relative complexity of the image files is determined based upon their high frequency energy content. As a function of the image file complexity, and starting with the compressed sizes initially determined, the appropriate quality level is determined for compressing each of the image files in an iterative process that ensures the total size of the compressed image files does not exceed the predefined limit, while retaining acceptable quality. Thus, a set of image files can be compressed optimally to fit within a limited storage.

Distributing limited storage among a collection of media objects

Embodiments are configured to provide information for display. Various embodiments include processing functionality that can be used to efficiently process pixel data associated with video, graphical, and other information. The functionality can be used in conjunction with different hardware and/or software architectures and configurations. In an embodiment, a computing device includes functionality to use a distinct window having alpha and occlusion features that can be used when processing pixel data associated with user interface (UI) elements and video, but is not so limited. The computing device can use the distinct window to display user interface elements having different levels or amounts of transparency as part of video capture and playback operations.

Displaying user interface elements having transparent effects

A portable media device intelligently caches media based on device state. The portable media device has a hard disk memory to store the media (e.g., music, videos, movies, games, etc.) and a cache memory. When the device is in a state of user interaction (e.g., the user is navigating a menu or playlist, the user interface is unlocked, and so forth), the portable media device caches many snippets of different media items in a playlist. This enables the device to respond quickly to user input and provide instant playback as the user navigates items in the playlist. Conversely, when the device is in a playback state (e.g., the user has ceased interacting with the device for a period of time, or has locked the user interface), the portable media device caches as much contiguous data from the selected media item in the playlist as possible.

Intelligent media caching based on device state

A method and system for automatically detecting a wide area network (WAN) communication connection to a selected one of a plurality of substantially equivalent communication ports. An initiation event, such as a link detect or a power on event, is detected for the selected port. An attempt is then made to access the WAN through the selected port. For example, an Internet connection request may be sent through the selected port. If a response is received through the selected port, the response is evaluated to determine if the attempt to access the WAN was successful. If the attempt was successful, the selected port is set as the WAN communication connection. Otherwise, the selected port is set as a local area network communication connection. Preferably, the dynamic WAN port detection is performed by a network device, such as a gateway, or by a computer in communication with a network device.

Dynamic WAN port detection

An original media object, such as an image, is edited without loss of the data comprising the media object. Changes applied to the media object are defined by metadata associated with the media object. For example, metadata define the cropping of an original JPEG image without loss of the original image. The metadata from a previous editing session can be used to further revising a change to the media object. Preferably, the metadata are stored as a stream in a substorage of an object linking and embedding (OLE) file. For display purposes, and for ease of modification, an edited version of the media object is stored as another stream of data in the substorage of the OLE file. The edited version of the media object is preferably compressed and serves as an intermediate object for faster display during editing and as a surrogate if the original media object is unavailable.

Lossless manipulation of media objects

The dynamic switching of a bi-endian processor between endian modes is described. A device having the bi-endian processor may also have an endian select circuit. The endian select circuit may receive a signal from the processor that determines what the endian-ness should be after the processor resets. Special instruction code may be executed by the processor in both little and big endian modes. The special instruction code may, for instance, cause a processor in a first endian mode to output a signal and reset, while the same instruction code may cause a processor in a second endian mode to neither output the signal nor reset. Instead, the processor in the second endian mode may jump to a new instruction address and proceed with normal processing.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Thomas Walter Getzinger