Apple Inc.

Xiaoxiao Zheng

Christopher M Garrido

David L Biderman

Ming Jin

Patrick Miauton

Eric L Chien

Komei Harada

Dazhong Zhang

Karthick Santhanam

Gurtej Singh G Chandok

Bess C Chan

Wenhui Xu

Xiaosong Zhou

Yan Yang

Keith Walter Rauenbuehler

Thomas P Devanneaux

Hsien-Po Shiang

Peikang Song

Vu H Chiem

Sudeng Hu

Yichao Shen

Spencer E Lewson

Kartik P Sathappan

Peter Shiang

Techniques presented herein provide an improved relay user experience and improved management of scarce computing and network resources as the number of relay endpoints increases. A sourcing endpoint device may generate a media feed, such as video and/or audio feed, representing contribution from a conference participant. The sourcing endpoint device may generate a priority value for the media feed, and the priority value may be transmitted to other members of the relay along with the input feed. Priority values of the different relay participants may be used by other devices, for example, intermediate servers or receiving endpoint devices, to manage aspects of the relay. For example, a relay server may prune streams from select endpoint devices based on relative priority values received from those devices. Alternatively, receiving endpoint devices may alter presentation of received feeds based on their associated priority values.

Media feed prioritization for multi-party conferencing

A device implementing a system for audio-video conferencing using multiple stream identifiers includes a processor configured to receive, from a sending device, indication of a first content stream and a first stream identifier, and indication of a second content stream and a second stream identifier associated. The first content stream and the second content stream correspond to different bit rates of streaming content. The processor is configured to receive, from a receiving device, a request to subscribe to the second content stream, the request including the second stream identifier, and receive, from the sending device, an indication that the second stream identifier has been associated with the first content stream. The processor is configured to forward, to the receiving device, the first content stream based on the request to subscribe to the second content stream and on the indication that the second stream identifier has been associated with the first content stream.

Multiway audio-video conferencing

A first request to form a conference call is received from a first of a plurality of electronic devices. In response to the first request, a conference data structure is generated in a memory. Based on determining the conference call has ended, a second request is transmitted to each of the plurality of electronic devices to return a high-resolution video stream generated by each electronic device during the conference call. In response to the second requests, the high-resolution video stream is received from at least some of the plurality of electronic devices. Each of the received high-resolution video streams is stored in the conference data structure in the memory to generate a completed conference data structure. A notice that the completed conference data structure is available is transmitted to each of the plurality of electronic devices.

High-quality audio/visual conferencing

In scenes that have low lighting, it may be difficult for a personal electronic device to capture video images that meet a scene lighting criteria. In some low-lighting situations, the receiving party may be unable to sufficiently see the face of the party that they are videoconferencing with. Described herein are techniques for utilizing a device's display to illuminate the scene surrounding the device. Improved lighting may come from global display adjustments, local display adjustments that do not alter the display's contents (other than to change their brightness levels), and/or local display adjustments that alter the display's contents. In some embodiments, background elements on a device's display may be identified for brightening in a first attempt to meet the scene lighting criteria without negatively impacting foreground scene content. If such approaches are unsuccessful, the device may next replace one or more regions of displayed content with regions of brightened pixels.

Video capture in low-light conditions

Growing community of inventors

Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Xiaoxiao Zheng