Patents by Inventor Alfonse Anthony Acampora
Alfonse Anthony Acampora 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).
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Patent number: 6731825Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing a composite of stored dynamic background activities with newly filmed or captured live foreground activities, thereby providing a real-time and on-site guide to actors and directors.Type: GrantFiled: July 11, 2000Date of Patent: May 4, 2004Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Nicola John Fedele, David Paul Bortfeld, Paul Hashfield
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Publication number: 20030112883Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing bi-directional communication in systems broadcasting multi-carrier signals removes at least one sub-carrier to form an intra-spectral gap within a multi-carrier broadcast signal. The intra-spectral gap is used to provide a bi-directional channel for propagating ancillary data signals between network elements in a broadcast communication system.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 2, 2002Publication date: June 19, 2003Inventors: David Wayne Ihrie, Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Richard Michael Bunting, Frank Bowen Lang, Frederick John Vannozzi
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Patent number: 6356212Abstract: A device and method for utilizing a single clock signal to generate a digital data stream signal for transmission in a compressed domain transmission system. The device includes a plurality of packetized elementary stream encoders electronically coupled to a transport stream encoder electronically coupled to an output interface adapted to generate the digital data stream signal.Type: GrantFiled: February 18, 2000Date of Patent: March 12, 2002Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, Alfonse Anthony Acampora, John Prickett Beltz, Victor Vincent D'Alessandro, Clifford Arthur Pecota
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Patent number: 6330286Abstract: In a compressed domain digital communications system, a method for reducing a variable latency associated with a buffer and at least partially resulting from at least one splice between a FROM bitstream and a TO bitstream each including data corresponding to a plurality of frames, the method including: selectively deleting data corresponding to a select at least one of the frames from the buffer based upon the variable latency so as to reduce the variable latency when an amount of data corresponding to a number of frames present in the buffer is greater than a given number of frames; and, regulating a flow of data in the system to prevent an underflow condition in the system by effecting a repeat last frame command and prevent an overflow condition in the system by slowing a rate of transmission for the data associated with at least one of the frames in the TO bitstream.Type: GrantFiled: June 8, 2000Date of Patent: December 11, 2001Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, John Prickett Beltz, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 6266384Abstract: An apparatus and method for receiving a bitstream containing timing information and respective program information, the program information is processed and associated with locally generated timing information to form an output bitstream, the locally generated timing information is synchronized to the received timing information so that the timing relationships of the received program information are preserved even after the program information is processed.Type: GrantFiled: May 19, 1997Date of Patent: July 24, 2001Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Victor Vincent D'Alessandro, Charles Martin Wine
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Patent number: 6101195Abstract: An apparatus and method for receiving an information stream comprising a plurality of timing portions and associated payload portions, decoding each timing portion, determining a duration parameter of a payload portion associated with the decoded timing portion, and recoding the timing portion using the duration parameter and a local reference time parameter.Type: GrantFiled: May 28, 1997Date of Patent: August 8, 2000Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, John Prickett Beltz, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 6081650Abstract: A transmitted high definition television signal is represented by a packetized datastream configured as a sequence of data fields (FIG. 1) with a non-uniform data rate due to unequal inter-data overhead information intervals. Each data field is prefaced by a Field Sync overhead segment followed by 312 packetized data segments each with associated overhead information (FEC). At a transmitter (FIG. 33), a transport processor (14) forms data packets with associated headers and exhibits uninterrupted operation at a constant uniform data rate, while supplying a packetized datastream to a network (17) which constructs sequential data fields by inserting the non-data overhead information into the datastream. The transport processor is advantageously operated at a constant uniform data rate without having to modify the original data field structure to accommodate the needs of the data field construction network.Type: GrantFiled: December 6, 1996Date of Patent: June 27, 2000Assignee: Thomson Licensing S.A.Inventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 6061399Abstract: A timing synchronization method and apparatus for processing a compressed information stream comprising a plurality of information segments representative of a sequence of information frames. Information segments representative of information frames are deleted in response to an indicium of buffer overutilization.Type: GrantFiled: May 28, 1997Date of Patent: May 9, 2000Assignee: Sarnoff CorporationInventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, John Prickett Beltz, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 5903324Abstract: A transmitted high definition television signal is represented by a packetized datastream configured as a sequence of data fields with a non-uniform data rate due to different types of different duration non-data overhead information. Each data field is prefaced by a Field Sync overhead segment followed by 312 packetized data segments each with associated overhead information. At a transmitter, a transport processor forms data packets with associated headers and exhibits uninterrupted operation at a constant uniform data rate, while supplying a packetized datastream to a network which constructs sequential data fields by inserting the non-data overhead information into the datastream. The transport processor is advantageously operated at a constant uniform data rate without having to modify the original data field structure to accommodate the needs of the data field construction network.Type: GrantFiled: December 6, 1996Date of Patent: May 11, 1999Assignee: Thomson Multimedia S.A.Inventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 5847779Abstract: A system of the present invention addresses the difficulty of aligning a reference sync byte at the beginning of a data packet during situations where the system experiences severe problems such as arbitrary resets/restarts or transmission disturbances. Specifically, the sync byte at the beginning of the data packet is automatically aligned with the beginning of a data acquisition interval when data is requested, even when there are arbitrary system resets/restarts. The alignment of the first data packet following a system reset is facilitated by the use of a Start Of Packet flag concurrent with the reference byte, together with a controlled logic network.Type: GrantFiled: December 6, 1996Date of Patent: December 8, 1998Assignee: RCA Thomson Licensing CorporationInventors: Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Richard Michael Bunting, Paul Wallace Lyons
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Patent number: 5831690Abstract: A transmission processor (16) receives an input packetized datastream (FIGS. 6-9; FIGS. 15-18 signal A) containing packets of data bytes including MPEG coded video information. The transmission processor outputs a symbol datastream (FIGS. 15-18 signal F) representing a sequence of data fields (FIG. 1) comprising groups of data segments (X) with an associated field sync segment. The transmission processor inserts overhead information. e.g., FEC error coding information, into each data segment, and inserts the longer duration field sync overhead segment between groups of data field segments. The frequency of the transmission processor input byte clock (SC/2, FIG. 6; FIG. 15) an integer sub-multiple of an output symbol clock (SC) frequency. The input datastream exhibits constant uniform inter-packet data gaps and a constant uniform data rate, thereby facilitating the seamless insertion of the field sync overhead segment into the datastream without interrupting the datastream.Type: GrantFiled: December 6, 1996Date of Patent: November 3, 1998Assignee: RCA Thomson Licensing CorporationInventors: Paul Wallace Lyons, Alfonse Anthony Acampora
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Patent number: 5796743Abstract: In a digital television signal processing system, a special codeword, a Packet Alignment Flag (PAF), is inserted into an MPEG codeword bitstream to signify the presence of a Group of Pictures (GOP). The PAF immediately precedes a Picture Start codeword for an "I" frame, which initiates a GOP. A data packet under construction when a PAF appears is terminated since a GOP is intended to begin at a packet boundary. Such termination may result in an abbreviated packet of MPEG codewords less than a prescribed number of bits needed to complete a data packet. The last word of each packet is designated as such to facilitate the subsequent combining of data packets with respective headers. An incomplete data packet is filled with null (zeroed bits) words to make up a complete data packet with a prescribed number of bits.Type: GrantFiled: May 23, 1996Date of Patent: August 18, 1998Assignee: General Electric CompanyInventors: Richard Michael Bunting, David Isaac Harris, Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Charles Alan Brooks
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Patent number: 5784110Abstract: In a digital television signal processing system, a special codeword, a Packet Alignment Flag (PAF (14), is inserted into an MPEG codeword bitstream to signify the presence of a Group of Pictures (GOP). The PAF immediately precedes a Picture Start codeword for an "I" frame, which initiates a GOP. A data packet (12) under construction when a PAF (14) appears is terminated since a GOP is intended to begin at a packet boundary. Such termination may result in an abbreviated packet of less than a prescribed number of codewords needed to complete a data packet. The last word of each packet is designated as such to facilitate the subsequent combining of data packets (12) with respective headers (18). An incomplete data packet is filled with null (zeroed bits) words to make up a complete data packet with a prescribed number of words.Type: GrantFiled: May 23, 1996Date of Patent: July 21, 1998Assignee: General Electric CompanyInventors: Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Richard Michael Bunting
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Patent number: 5767912Abstract: In a digital television signal processing system, a special codeword, a Packet Alignment Flag (PAF), is inserted into an MPEG codeword bitstream to signify the presence of a Group of Pictures (GOP). The PAF immediately precedes a Picture Start codeword for an "I" frame, which initiates a GOP. A data packet under construction when a PAF appears is terminated since a GOP is intended to begin at a packet boundary. Such termination may result in an abbreviated packet of less than a prescribed number of codewords needed to complete a data packet. The last word of each packet is designated as such to facilitate the subsequent combining of data packets with respective headers. An incomplete data packet is filled with null (zeroed bits) words to make up a complete data packet with a prescribed number of words.Type: GrantFiled: May 23, 1996Date of Patent: June 16, 1998Assignee: General Electric CompanyInventors: Richard Michael Bunting, David Isaac Harris, Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Charles Alan Brooks
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Patent number: 5729292Abstract: A method is disclosed for optimizing the operation of a packet transport system generating a packet stream carrying a plurality of component signals, and includes the following steps. First the packet stream is partitioned into successive groups, each group containing a predetermined number of packet slots. A plurality of lists are maintained, one associated with each packet slot in a group. A packet stream is generated by placing data representing a component signal selected in response to entries in the list associated with that packet slot into the packet slot. The contents of the plurality of lists are updated based on a predetermined parameter.Type: GrantFiled: December 21, 1995Date of Patent: March 17, 1998Assignee: Thomson Multimedia, S.A.Inventors: Alfonse Anthony Acampora, Richard Michael Bunting, Steven Kennedy Evans, Paul Wallace Lyons, Nicola John Fedele, Victor Vincent D'Alessandro