Method for transmitting data in a multimedia system, and software product and device for controlling the transmission of data in a multimedia system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10389771-B2
Application number	US-201615549879-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 8, 2016
Priority date	Feb 9, 2015
Publication date	Aug 20, 2019
Grant date	Aug 20, 2019

Abstract

Method and software product for transferring data, plus equipment for controlling data transfer in a multimedia system that includes a group of participants' terminals, with which multimedia data generated by participants' terminals contained in the group are sent to one or more participants' terminals contained in the group and played back there. A central synchronization unit generates synchronization labels containing time information and sends them to the participants' terminals contained in the group, and the synchronization labels are used to play back information in modified time.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for transmitting data in a multimedia system that includes a group including participants' terminals, with which multimedia data generated by participants' terminals contained in the group are sent to one or more participants' terminals contained in the group and played back there, comprising:
generating synchronization labels through a central synchronization unit, said synchronization labels containing time information, and sending them to the participants' terminals contained in the group;
receiving the synchronization labels through each of the participants' terminals contained in the group, attaching the received synchronization labels to the multimedia data generated in the participants' terminal, and sending the multimedia data with the received synchronization labels attached to the central synchronization unit;
receiving, through the central synchronization unit the multimedia data with the attached synchronization labels, modifying the time information contained in the synchronization labels according to a time context for the multimedia data sent by the participants' terminals, and sending the multimedia data to the participants' terminals to be played back; and
receiving the multimedia data with the attached modified synchronization labels through the participants' terminals and playing back the multimedia data in the time context corresponding to the modified time information contained in the synchronization labels.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the central synchronization unit receives the multimedia data with synchronization labels and modifies the time information contained in the synchronization labels corresponding to the control information, which takes into account the properties of the participants' terminals that are sending and receiving the multimedia data and the properties of the transmission path.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the control information is contained in a control table located in the central synchronization unit, wherein the control table generates the synchronization labels, said synchronization labels containing at least one context tag that describes the way the medium is used in the conversation, one conversation tag representing a unit of order for all the conversations managed by the central synchronization unit, and one media tag describing the type of medium.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the control information corresponding to which the time information contained in the synchronization labels is modified is dynamically adapted.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the multimedia data are transmitted in the form of data packets and respective synchronization labels are assigned to the data packets.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein data packets are transmitted with differing period lengths, and wherein synchronization labels are generated corresponding to a periodic time sequence whose period length is equal to or shorter than the length of the data packet with the shortest period length.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the synchronization labels contain a time stamp.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the synchronization labels contain a respective sequential value based on a preset starting time and corresponding to the respective time.

9. A software product that is stored on a computer-readable medium and can preferably be installed directly into the internal memory of a computer, wherein said product comprises the program code for a computer program enabling a computer to carry out the steps of claim 1 , when the program is run on a computer.

10. A system for controlling data transfer in a multimedia system, comprising:
a group of participants' terminals with which multimedia data generated by participants' terminals contained in the group are sent to one or more participants' terminals contained in the group and played back there, comprising:
central synchronization unit generating synchronization labels containing time information and sending them to each of the participants' terminals contained in the group, wherein the participants' terminals receive the synchronization labels and attach the received synchronization labels to the multimedia data generated in the participant's terminal and send the multimedia data with the received synchronization labels attached to the central synchronization unit, and
wherein the central synchronization unit receives the multimedia data with the attached synchronization labels from the participants' terminals and modifies the time information contained in the synchronization labels according to a time context for the multimedia data by the participants' terminals and sends the multimedia data to the participants' terminals,
wherein the multimedia data with the attached modified synchronization labels is received in the participants' terminals and played back in the time context corresponding to the modified time information contained in the synchronization labels.

Assignees

• Unify Gmbh & Co Kg

Inventors

• Klug Karl
• Kleiner Patrick

Classifications

• H04L65/4015 Primary

  where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference · CPC title

• H04L65/403 Primary

  Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15) · CPC title

• H04L65/1089

  by adding media; by removing media · CPC title