Combining direct and routed communication in a video conference
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsTimothy Moore, Dalibor Kukoleca, Jiannan Zheng
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A video conference cross-links at least a portion of the clients for point to point communication while still using a video conference server. The video conference server continues to manage some aspects of the video conference for the cross-linked clients and may be configured to perform audio/video processing for some of the clients in a video conference. For example, the video conference server may perform audio/video processing and routing of streams for clients that do not have the capabilities to perform the processing directly. Clients that are able to process their audio/video needs may directly connect to other clients through cross-links while still using the video conference server for management.
Claims20
A method for cross-linking clients and using a video conference server to manage the clients within the video conference, comprising:
- establishing a first connection between a first client and a server in a video conference and establishing a second connection between a second client and the server in the video conference;
- determining a first capability of the first client and a second capability of the second client;
- wherein the first capability and the second capability is an ability to encode and decode streams that are used within the video conference;
- in response to determining a first capability of the first client and a second capability of the second client, sending a request from the video conference server to at least one of the first client and the second client to establish a cross-link connection between the first client and the second client, wherein after the cross-link connection is established a stream is delivered between the first client and the second client without passing through the video conference server;
- and
- using the video conference server to manage the first client and the second client in the video conference.
A computer-readable storage medium which stores a set of instructions which when executed performs a method for cross-linking clients and using a video conference server to manage the clients within the video conference, the method executed by the set of instructions comprising:
- establishing for each client of the video conference a connection with the video server;
- determining capabilities for each client within the video conference, wherein the capabilities include at least an encoding ability and an available bandwidth;
- determining at the video server the clients to cross-link within the video conference;
- establishing the cross-link between each of the determined clients, wherein after the cross-link connection is established a stream is delivered between at least two of the clients that are cross-linked without passing through the video conference server;
- and
- using the video conference server to manage the cross-linked clients and the other clients in the video conference.
A system for generating streams cross-links clients and uses a video conference server to manage the clients within the video conference, the system comprising:
- a memory storage;
- a network connection device;
- and
- a processing unit coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processing unit is operative to:
- register a first video conference client and a second video conference client operatively connected to the system via the network connection device, wherein being operative to register the first video conference client and the second video conference client comprises being operative to establish capabilities for the first video conference client and the second video conference client, wherein the capabilities are used to determine an encoding ability;
- establish a cross-link between the first video conference client and the second video conference client when determined based on the capabilities of the first video conference client and the second video conference client;
- wherein a stream that is sent to the second video conference client from the first video conference client is not processed by the processing unit;
- receive a stream from the first video conference client, and route the stream to another client in the video conference.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.