Abstract: A display technique determines the desired size of an object to be displayed (using a distance dependent measure such as visual arc angle), determines the distance between the display unit and a user, and adjusts the size of the displayed object based on the desired size and measured distance. By repeatably determining the distance between the user and display unit, each displayed object may be dynamically adjusted to maintain an approximately constant size display, from the users point of view. The display technique may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. One benefit of the display technique is that eye strain can be reduced while working at a computer display unit.

Abstract: An apparatus that includes an image capture device and a support. The image capture device captures images of a user's lips, and the support holds the image capture device in a position substantially constant relative to the user's lips as the user's head moves.

Abstract: High quality replay of a streaming multimedia video segment on demand is provided. The multimedia segment may be transmitted as a stream by a server system and received by a client system over a fixed bandwidth communications path. The client system receives a base layer of the stream, decodes the base layer and displays the decoded base layer at a first quality level. The client system stores at least a portion of the base layer in a cache. When a request for replay service for the multimedia segment is received from a user, for high quality replay, the client system may receive at least one enhancement layer of the stream corresponding to the stored portion of the base layer. The client system may then read the stored portion of the base layer from the cache, decode the stored portion of the base layer and the at least one enhancement layer, and display the decoded base and enhancement layers at a second quality level, higher than the first quality level.

Abstract: A picture/video encoder is provided with operating logic for segmenting objects with random texture from objects with structured texture in a picture/video frame, and generating random function parameters for the objects with random texture. Additionally, a picture/video decoder is provided with operating logic for regenerating the natural objects in accordance with the random function parameters provided, and reassembling the regenerated objects with random texture with decoded objects with structured texture to reconstitute the original picture/video frame.

Abstract: In a video image compression and transmission system, quantization parameters for a block transform based video compression algorithm can be controlled by a quantizer selector so as to control compressed video frame size. The selection of the appropriate quantization parameter for the nth macroblock of a current frame is based on the cumulative number of compressed bits appearing in the first n-1 macroblocks of a current frame and a previous frame. By controlling the quantization parameter is such a manner, the overall system reacts more quickly to changes in complexity in the video sequence and allocates bits more accurately to different parts of the video frame according to a past history of bit allocation. To efficiently utilize the bandwidth of a transmission medium (such as POTS), a bit count of the contents of the transmit buffer is sent to a buffer regulator in a video controller where it is compared to a low water mark threshold.

Abstract: A maximum a posteriori (MAP) filter is applied as a loop filter during encode/decode processing to generate filtered data used to encode/decode other data. In one embodiment, the MAP filter is applied iteratively to a decoded frame to generate the resulting filtered frame. When applied as a loop filter, the filtered frame is used to generate reference data used to encode or decode one or more other video frames.

Abstract: An apparatus is programmed with a video service for facilitating video communication with another remote apparatus, in accordance with a video communication protocol. The video service includes a still image function with logic for providing a plurality of progressive scans of one or more still images to the remote apparatus, in accordance with a still image communication protocol defined within the video communication protocol. In one embodiment, the still image function includes logic for instructing a local video capture driver to switch to a format of the still image function's choice for capturing video image frames, holding constant video image input to a video codec to generate the plurality of progressive scans of the still images, and implementing the still image communication protocol.

Abstract: Blocks of video images are characterized as being part of either scene foreground or background for encoding. The foreground/background segmentation analysis involves a pixel level and a block level. During the pixel level, interframe differences corresponding to each original image are thresholded to generate an initial pixel-level mask. A first morphological filter is applied to the initial pixel-level mask to generate a filtered pixel-level mask. During the block level, the filtered pixel-level mask is thresholded to generate an initial block-level mask. A second morphological filter is preferably applied to the initial block-level mask to generate a filtered block-level mask. Each element of the filtered block-level mask indicates whether the corresponding block of the original image is part of the foreground or background. In a preferred embodiment, both morphological filters filter out isolated mask elements.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for protecting user privacy by providing an inaccurate measure of network systems automatically initiates one or more non-user requested accesses to one or more network systems. The data received from the host system corresponding to the one or more non-user requested accesses is then automatically ignored.

Abstract: Block-level statistical measures are generated and then used to generate macroblock-level statistical measures, which are in turn used to determine how to encode the macroblocks of the image. In a preferred embodiment, a macroblock-level intra-SAD measure is generated by summing four block-level intra-SAD measures generated from the four blocks of the macroblock. The macroblock-level intra-SAD measure is then used to determine whether to encode the macroblock using intraframe encoding or interframe encoding. Basing macroblock-level statistics on block-level measures can provide a more accurate prediction as to how the macroblock would be encoded using intraframe encoding techniques.

Abstract: Blocks of video frames are classified for encoding, for example, as empty blocks, inter blocks, or Intra blocks. This block classification is based on (at least) one statistical measure for each block. The classification is based on a comparison of the statistical measure for each block to a threshold value, but the threshold value can change, for example, from block to block or from frame to frame. In a preferred embodiment, the threshold values change as quantization (Q) level changes. In embodiments in which more than one statistical measure is used for block classification of each block, the more than one corresponding threshold values change as Q level changes.

Abstract: The invention is a method and apparatus for ordering pixels in a matrix of pixels. The matrix is first divided into multiple cells, where each cell is a smaller matrix of pixels. For each cell in the matrix, an ordering is chosen for the pixels in the cell, and each cell is identified by the pixel ordering for the cell and a direction to a next cell in the matrix. A decision is made on how to represent the ordered block, by first computing a number of non-zero pixels in the current block to a number of runs of zero valued pixels in the current block to compute and intra coefficient count. The pixels in the current block are subtracted from the pixels in a second ordered block in a second image to compute an inter block, and an inter coefficient count is computer by adding a number of non-zero pixels in the inter block to a number of runs of zero valued pixels in the inter block.

Abstract: Blocks of video frames are classified for encoding, for example, as empty blocks, inter blocks, or intra blocks. This block classification is based on (at least) two statistical measures for each block: a global measure and a local measure. In a preferred embodiment, blocks are classified as empty blocks using an inter sum-of-absolute-differences (SAD) measure (a global measure) and a maximum-absolute-difference (MAD) measure (a local measure). The inter-SAD and MAD measures are generated for each block of the current frame relative to a corresponding reference block of a reference frame. If the inter-SAD and MAD measures are less than specified thresholds, then the block is classified as an empty block for encoding.

Abstract: A background region of the current image is compared to a reference region to characterize the gain associated with the current image. The values of the unsaturated background pixels of the current image are then adjusted to correct for the characterized gain before encoding the current image. In a preferred embodiment, the reference region is generated based on the previous n frames in the video sequence.