System and method for communicating digitally-encoded acoustic information across a network between computers

A system for communicating sound between computers, comprising:

• means for receiving via a computer network a first digitally-encoded acoustic signal from a first computer and a second digitally-encoded acoustic signal from a second computer;
• means for storing the first digitally-encoded acoustic signal and the second digitally-encoded acoustic signal separately;
• and
• means for processing the first digitally-encoded acoustic signal and the second digitally-encoded acoustic signal separately;
• means for mixing the first digitally-encoded acoustic signal and the second digitally-encoded acoustic signal to generate a mixed digitally-encoded acoustic signal;
• and
• means for converting the mixed digitally-encoded acoustic signal to sound.

A computer-readable storage medium storing program code for causing a computer to perform the steps of:

• receiving via a computer network a first digitally-encoded acoustic signal from a first computer and a second digitally-encoded acoustic signal from a second computer;
• storing the first digitally-encoded acoustic signal in a first memory portion and the second digitally-encoded acoustic signal in a second memory portion;
• processing the first digitally-encoded acoustic signal and the second digitally-encoded acoustic signal;
• mixing the processed first digitally-encoded acoustic signal and the processed second digitally-encoded acoustic signal to generate a mixed digitally-encoded acoustic signal;
• and
• converting the mixed digitally-encoded acoustic signal to sound.

A system for processing digitally-encoded acoustic information provided by computers in a computer network, comprising:

• a communications interface coupled to a computer network for receiving digitally-encoded acoustic signals from computers in the computer network;
• memory coupled to the communications interface for storing separately the received digitally-encoded acoustic signals;
• a sound processor coupled to the memory for enhancing separately the stored digitally-encoded acoustic signals;
• and
• a sound mixer coupled to the sound processor for mixing the processed digitally-encoded acoustic signals to produce a mixed signal.

A system for processing digitally-encoded acoustic information provided by computers in a computer network, comprising:

• a user interface for converting sound to first digitally-encoded acoustic signals;
• a router coupled to said user interface and to said computer network for sending said first digitally-encoded acoustic signals to said computer network, and for receiving second digitally-encoded acoustic signals from computers in said computer network;
• sound buffers coupled to said router for storing individually the second digitally-encoded acoustic signals;
• an enhancement element coupled to said router for processing individually the second digitally-encoded acoustic signals stored in the sound buffers;
• and
• a sound mixer coupled to said enhancement element for mixing said processed second digitally-encoded acoustic signals to generate a mixed digitally-encoded acoustic signal.