Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

William R Sanders

Yongjun Wu

Chih-Lung Lin

Shijun Sun

Thomas W Holcomb

Naveen Thumpudi

Weidong Zhao

Darren Ray Davis

Daniel Dinu

Charles R Kellner, Jr

Error concealment techniques for video decoding are described. For example, a video decoder after finding a corrupted picture in a bit stream, finds a suitable neighbor for the corrupted picture. For example, the video decoder favors pictures with the same parity as the corrupted picture and considers picture order count and picture corruption in choosing a neighbor. The decoder then modifies syntax elements for the encoded video in the bit stream to allow the neighbor to be used in concealing the corruption in the corrupted picture. The modification of syntax elements can depend on the particular video decoder implementation. For example, in a software-only multithreaded video decoder, a task graph is modified, while in a system utilizing video acceleration, syntax elements for reference lists are modified.

Error concealment techniques in video decoding

An encoder is disclosed that is partitioned into discrete hardware modules. The discrete modules include multiple re-entry and exit points that allow enhanced control by software. The software can control the discrete modules during the encoding process and make adjustments according to CPU bandwidth and/or user requirements allowing for enhanced quality control and seamless hardware/software operations. In one embodiment, a media stream is received into an encoder that includes a pipeline of multiple hardware stages for encoding. An intermediate result is provided from at least one of the hardware stages to an encoding control module that processes the intermediate result to determine configuration instructions for a next hardware stage in the pipeline. Thus, the encoding process can be modified dynamically through hardware and software interactions as the media stream progresses through the pipeline of the encoder.

Encoder with multiple re-entry and exit points

Systems and methods for managing frame rates during multimedia playback are described herein. The ideal playback timing associated with video data is determined. If an actual playback timing of the video data lags the ideal playback timing, a frame rate associated with the video data is varied using a smoothing function to recover toward the ideal playback timing. An iterative frame-dropping algorithm is applied to vary the frame rate in accordance with the smoothing function. The smoothing function incorporates as a variable an average delay associated with playback of frames in the video data.

Systems and methods for managing frame rates during multimedia playback

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Stanwood, WA, United States of America

William R Sanders