Error/status information management
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsLouis F. Coffin III, Deepak Prakash, James A. Lundblad
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for managing error/status information generated in the demultiplexing, processing, and handling of data packets from a video transport stream. Error/status information is organized into control fields of error/status packets. The error/status packets are sent to dedicated error/status buffers of bulk system memory where they can be accessed by a system processor during the reconfiguration and decoding of video programming.
Claims33
In a video processing device configured to receive an incoming video stream, the video processing device having a transport processor unit for processing data packets from the incoming video stream, a method for handling exception information comprising the acts of:
- accumulating exception information generated as a data packet is processed;
- creating an exception packet by arranging the exception information into one or more control fields of the exception packet;
- and
- transferring the one or more exception packets to system memory.
In a video processing device configured to receive an incoming video stream, the video processing device having a plurality of transport processor units, each transport processor unit having a transport interface, a demultiplexing processor, and a demultiplexing direct memory access (DMA) unit, each transport processor unit being configured to process data packets from the incoming video stream, a method for handling error information comprising the acts of:
- accumulating exception information generated in the transport interface as data packets are acquired from the video stream;
- accumulating exception information generated in the demultiplexing processor as the acquired data packets are processed;
- accumulating exception information generated in the demultiplexing DMA unit as the acquired data packets undergo memory handling;
- creating one or more exception packets by arranging the exception information into one or more control fields of the one or more exception packets;
- and
- transferring the one or more exception packets to system memory accessible by video processing software.
For use in a video processing device configured to receive an incoming video stream, the video processing device having a transport processor unit for processing data packets from the incoming video stream, a computer-readable medium carrying computer-executable instructions for implementing a method for handling exception information, wherein the computer-executable instructions comprise:
- program code means for receiving exception information generated as a data packet is processed;
- program code means for creating an exception packet by arranging the exception information into one or more control fields of the exception packet;
- and
- program code means for transferring the one or more exception packets to system memory.
In a video processing device configured to decode video data associated with processed data packets, the video data representing a video programming, a method for utilizing information held in exception packets generated in the transport processor unit comprising the acts of:
- accessing video data associated with processed data packets from a video stream buffer in system memory;
- accessing information held in exception packets from system memory;
- and
- utilizing information held in exception packets to inform operations associated with configuring and decoding of the video data.
In a video processing device configured to decode video data representing a digital video program, the transport data isolated from a video transport stream in a transport processor unit, a method for creating and using exception packet information generated in the transport processor unit comprising the acts of:
- accumulating exception information generated as transport data is isolated;
- creating an exception packet by arranging the exception information into one or more control fields;
- and
- transferring the one or more exception packets to an exception packet buffer;
- accessing the exception packet from the exception packet buffer;
- and
- utilizing exception information held in the exception packet to inform operations associated with the decoding of video data.
A video processing device configured to process data packets received from an incoming video stream and wherein exception information is generated in the processing of one or more data packets, the processing apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of transport processor units, wherein each of the transport processor units comprises:
- a transport interface that identifies data packets to acquire from an incoming video stream and generates exception information related to packet acquisition;
- and
- a demultiplexing processor that performs processing of the acquitted data packets and generates exception information related to data packet processing;
- a demultiplexing direct memory access (DMA) unit that determines memory handling operations to be performed on the acquired data packets and generates exception information related to data packet memory handling;
- and
- means for organizing the exception information into one or more control fields of one or more exception packets.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.