Abstract: A system and method is provided for allocating video bandwidth of a channel that carries both video and audio information. The quality of an audio signal received over the channel is determined, and the video bandwidth of the channel is changed based upon the quality of the received audio signal. The quality of the audio signal can be determined by measuring factors including audio latency, the extent to which audio packets that are sent are not received, the sampling rate at which audio information in the audio signal is digitized, and detecting a period of audio silence.

Abstract: A computer system with an operating system and a data-processing system running on a host processor, and a receiver. The receiver sends interrupt signals to the operating system after the receiver has received data signals. The operating system establishes interrupt times and passes the interrupt signals to the data-processing system. The data-processing system accesses the data signals from the receiver and only partially processes the data signals during the interrupt times. The operating system also receives clock interrupt signals, which it passes on to the data-processing system. The data-processing system completes the processing of the data signals during the clock interrupt times that the operating system establishes in response to the clock interrupt signals.

Abstract: Signals (e.g., for audio/video conferencing) are divided into data packets for transmission from a local node to a remote node. The transmission of the data packets is delayed to transmit then at intervals to avoid overloading the remote node with data packets that it does not have the bandwidth to receive and/or process. The invention helps prevent the remote node from dropping data packets which may otherwise occur when transmitting audio and/or video signals during a session (e.g., an audio/video conferencing session).