Abstract: Novel tools and techniques for minimizing the latency of video processing blocks via pipelining. Video calling is a latency sensitive application. When the latency between capture at the video source and display at the video sink is too large, the call does not appear interactive. Transmission of video over a network exacerbates the problem. It is highly desirable to minimize the capture/encode/transmit latency at the video source and the receive/decode/display latency at the video sink. Certain tools disclosed herein minimize these latencies via pipelining of processing blocks. For example, in some tools, each block begins processing before the previous block has finished its processing.

Abstract: A communication method comprising characterizing a communications channel, determining a data rate and optionally a power allocation strategy that maximizes channel throughput, and configuring a transmitter to send a transmit signal with said data rate and said optional power allocation strategy.