The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 12, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 21, 1999
Michael Alan Kutner, Mountain View, CA (US);
Markus Hendrikus Veltman, Tokyo, JP;
Masahito Yamane, San Jose, CA (US);
Ikuo Tsukagoshi, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Klaus Zimmermann, Stuttgart, DE;
Other;
Abstract
A flexible software-based decoding system with decoupled decoding timing and output timing. In one embodiment, a computer software implemented method of decoding a data stream comprising encoded video data is provided. In this embodiment, the software method comprises the step of maintaining a number of already decoded and ready-for-output frames in a frame buffer. The method also comprises the step of decoding a first encoded frame of the data stream to generate an additional decoded frame. The method further comprises the step of outputting a first of the decoded frames before decoding of the first encoded frame is completed if the decoding step requires more time than a predefined frame output time to complete. Moreover, in this embodiment, the method comprises the step of adding the first additional decoded frame to the frame buffer. In this embodiment, real-time output is maintained irrespective of whether completion of the decoding step requires more time than the predefined frame output time for particular frames. In one embodiment, the method further comprises the step of decoding a second encoded frame of the data stream substantially immediately upon completion of the decoding step to generate a second additional decoded frame, provided that the completion of the decoding step requires more time than the predefined frame output time, and also the step of adding the second additional decoded frame to the frame buffer.