Patents by Inventor Aaron Bradley Small

Aaron Bradley Small has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8913670
    Abstract: A system and method are provided that can be used for applying a deblocking filter to a video according to processor usage, in particular on a mobile device. To determine which of a plurality of deblocking filters to use, the system determines an environment indicator indicative of current processor usage, compares the environment indicator to a primary threshold, wherein the primary threshold is indicative of a maximum acceptable processor usage. If the primary threshold is met, the system foregoes any deblocking filtering. If however the primary threshold is not met, the environment indicator is compared to one or more secondary thresholds and a respective one of the plurality of deblocking filters is applied to the video according to which one of the secondary thresholds is met. Each of the plurality of deblocking filters has a different complexity and thus can be chosen to suit the current system environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 16, 2014
    Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
    Inventors: David Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small
  • Patent number: 8885733
    Abstract: A processor and method are provided for decoding a multimedia file having video and audio data streams that are configured to be played in synchronization. Frames of the video stream are decoded and played with the audio and, to compensate for saturation of the processor usage, two procedures are performed. The first procedure operates at a first periodic interval and slows down the frame rate to reduce processor usage if needed. The second procedure first attempts to speed up the video to catch up to the audio if they are out of sync and if this cannot be done in the next time interval, the decoding of a select number of frames is skipped such that the video and audio data streams are resynchronized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 11, 2014
    Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
    Inventors: David Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small, Thomas Charles Nagy
  • Patent number: 8789052
    Abstract: A system and method for controlling processor usage according to user related tasks is provided. For periodic tasks, by increasing the period at which the task runs, the average processor usage can be reduced to meet a particular target which can ensure that user input is not affected by the periodic task. As such, the periodic task can be intelligently degraded and altered to compensate for such degradation in order to free up enough processor usage space so as to not adversely affect user input.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2014
    Assignee: Blackbery Limited
    Inventor: Aaron Bradley Small
  • Publication number: 20130069981
    Abstract: A system and a method for compositing graphics on a computing device are provided. The computing device includes one or more hardware layers. The method includes determining if the number of surfaces to be displayed by the computing device is more than the number of the hardware layers. If so, two or more of the surfaces are combined to form one or more pseudo surfaces. The combined number of the pseudo surfaces and the remaining ones of the surfaces is equal to or less than the number of the one or more hardware layers. This allows for each of the pseudo surfaces or the remaining ones of the surfaces to be assigned to separate hardware layers. The computational cost for combining the surfaces is also considered during the process.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2011
    Publication date: March 21, 2013
    Applicant: Research In Motion Limited
    Inventors: David James Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small
  • Publication number: 20120328268
    Abstract: A processor and method are provided for decoding a multimedia file having video and audio data streams that are configured to be played in synchronization. Frames of the video stream are decoded and played with the audio and, to compensate for saturation of the processor usage, two procedures are performed. The first procedure operates at a first periodic interval and slows down the frame rate to reduce processor usage if needed. The second procedure first attempts to speed up the video to catch up to the audio if they are out of sync and if this cannot be done in the next time interval, the decoding of a select number of frames is skipped such that the video and audio data streams are resynchronized.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 6, 2012
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: Research In Motion Limited
    Inventors: David Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small, Thomas Charles Nagy
  • Publication number: 20110221960
    Abstract: A method of operating a multimedia player is provided. The method includes decoding an audio stream of the multimedia player and rendering the decoded audio stream in the multimedia player, updating the media time of the media player with an audio timestamp of the rendered audio stream as the audio stream is rendered, and, while decoding and rendering the audio stream, decoding a video stream and checking the media clock to determine if a video timestamp of the decoded video stream is within a threshold of the media clock time, and if not then adapting post-processing of the video stream to decrease video stream post-processing time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2010
    Publication date: September 15, 2011
    Applicant: RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED
    Inventors: Alexander Glaznev, David James Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small
  • Publication number: 20110111808
    Abstract: A mobile wireless communications device includes a display, at least one input device, and a processor. The processor is connected to the display and at least one input device, and is configured to display on the display video from at least one video media file, the at least one video media file also having closed captions associated with the video. The processor is further configured to display on the display closed captions with a position thereof being selectable responsive to the at least one input device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 12, 2010
    Publication date: May 12, 2011
    Applicant: Research in Motion Limited
    Inventors: Gregory Jason Fields, Andrew Robert Patterson, Christopher James Runstedler, Aaron Bradley Small
  • Publication number: 20090135918
    Abstract: A processor and method are provided for decoding a multimedia file having video and audio data streams that are configured to be played in synchronization. Frames of the video stream are decoded and played with the audio and, to compensate for saturation of the processor usage, two procedures are performed. The first procedure operates at a first periodic interval and slows down the frame rate to reduce processor usage if needed. The second procedure first attempts to speed up the video to catch up to the audio if they are out of sync and if this cannot be done in the next time interval, the decoding of a select number of frames is skipped such that the video and audio data streams are resynchronized.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 23, 2007
    Publication date: May 28, 2009
    Applicant: Research in Motion Limited
    Inventors: David MAK-FAN, Aaron Bradley Small, Thomas Charles Nagy
  • Publication number: 20090052555
    Abstract: A system and method are provided that can be used for applying a deblocking filter to a video according to processor usage, in particular on a mobile device. To determine which of a plurality of deblocking filters to use, the system determines an environment indicator indicative of current processor usage, compares the environment indicator to a primary threshold, wherein the primary threshold is indicative of a maximum acceptable processor usage. If the primary threshold is met, the system foregoes any deblocking filtering. If however the primary threshold is not met, the environment indicator is compared to one or more secondary thresholds and a respective one of the plurality of deblocking filters is applied to the video according to which one of the secondary thresholds is met. Each of the plurality of deblocking filters has a different complexity and thus can be chosen to suit the current system environment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 21, 2007
    Publication date: February 26, 2009
    Inventors: David Mak-Fan, Aaron Bradley Small
  • Publication number: 20080243276
    Abstract: A system and method for controlling processor usage according to user related tasks is provided. For periodic tasks, by increasing the period at which the task runs, the average processor usage can be reduced to meet a particular target which can ensure that user input is not affected by the periodic task. As such, the periodic task can be intelligently degraded and altered to compensate for such degradation in order to free up enough processor usage space so as to not adversely affect user input.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2007
    Publication date: October 2, 2008
    Inventor: Aaron Bradley Small