Interactive multimedia system

Abstract

An interactive multimedia audio/video communications system uses a lower data rate, non-deterministic graphics/command network having a plurality of desktop viewing stations and a network server. A separate, higher data rate, deterministic audio/video network is coupled to the plurality of desktop viewing stations using appropriate resources, such as an audio/video routing switcher and a professional disk recorder. A database contains a telephone directory so that when a user at one of the plurality of stations desires to communicate with another station, the user selects a telephone number and the server from the database determines the appropriate resources required to complete the connection. The server configures the necessary hardware via the graphics/command network to route the audio/video signals over the audio/video network from one station to the other. For conferences a quad splitter is used to combine up to four video signals into a singled composited video signal for display at the user's station. For communications with stations that exist on another node, the server communicates with the server at the other node and a codec farm is used to transfer the audio/video signals from the audio/video network of one system to the other. Thus the graphics/command network is left free for normal graphics operations once the audio/video communications has been established.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.