Patents by Inventor Gareth Howells

Gareth Howells 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).

  • Publication number: 20070035559
    Abstract: Compositing functionality is provided in the form of an application program interface (API) that applications can utilize to composite images on video data that is to be rendered. In at least some embodiments, this functionality is exposed in a multimedia pipeline towards the end of the multimedia pipeline, such as at or by a renderer component. A set of methods exposed by the API permit an application to create and manage image compositing.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 12, 2005
    Publication date: February 15, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Alexandre Grigorovitch, Jay Senior, Jonathan Cain, Gurpratap Virdi, Sohail Mohammed, Kirt Debique, Gareth Howell, Tim Cowley, Miguel Valdez, Stephen Estrop
  • Publication number: 20070008327
    Abstract: A media processing framework includes multiple media processing paths. At least one of the media processing paths includes a media processing pipeline which is in-process with respect to an application which interacts with the media processing pipeline. At least one other of the media processing paths includes a media processing pipeline which is out-of-process with respect to the application. The application can specify a custom plug-in presenter module to be set in either the in-process media processing pipeline or the out-of-process media processing pipeline. The application need not be “aware” of the pipeline that is being used, whether the pipeline is in-process or out-of-process, or the security level that is applied to the media processing pipeline. Both the in-process and the out-of-process media processing pipelines can supply media information to a presentation processor, such as a compositing engine.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 11, 2005
    Publication date: January 11, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Gareth Howell, Thobias Jones, Nishad Mulye, Gurpratap Virdi
  • Publication number: 20060184684
    Abstract: Systems and methods for processing input media in a computing device are described. In one aspect, a reconstructed frame is cached according to a set of criteria. A request to scrub to a predictive frame of input media is received. Responsive to receiving the request, the predictive frame is decoded starting with the reconstructed frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 8, 2003
    Publication date: August 17, 2006
    Inventors: Rebecca Weiss, Geoffrey Dunbar, Niranjan Nayak, Sohail Mohammed, Thomas Holcomb, Chih-lung Lin, Olivier Colle, Gareth Howell
  • Publication number: 20060095850
    Abstract: Providing resiliency to a multimedia application. A list of filters associated with the multimedia application is identified. It is determined if one or more filters of the identified list of filters are suitable for the multimedia application. The one or more filters are disabled if the one or more filters are determined to be unsuitable for the multimedia application. The one or more filters of the list of filters may also be presented to a user of the multimedia application as a function of suitability of each of the list of filters for the multimedia application. The user is allowed to manage the presented one or more filters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 29, 2004
    Publication date: May 4, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Kristen Miller, Brian Walker, Gareth Howell, Ian Mercer
  • Publication number: 20050244005
    Abstract: Methods and systems enable content authors to achieve frame-accurate editing and, in at least some embodiments, reduce the amount of content that needs to be decompressed in order to operate on the frames. Some embodiments ensure that bit rate integrity is preserved so that bit rate conditions associated with streaming environments are preserved. Various embodiments intelligently determine which content portions should be decompressed, processed, and recompressed and which content portions should not be decompressed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2004
    Publication date: November 3, 2005
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Alexandre Grigorovitch, Chih-lung Lin, Gareth Howell, Mei Wilson, Niranjan Nayak, Olivier Colle, Randolph Oakley, Blake Bender, Tony Antoun
  • Publication number: 20050207734
    Abstract: Described herein is a technology for facilitating playback of video segments (with transforms applied therein) which can be both glitch-free and realtime.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2004
    Publication date: September 22, 2005
    Inventors: Gareth Howell, Olivier Colle, Rebecca Weiss