Method and system for selectively viewing participants of a multimedia ...

(54) METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SELECTIVELY VIEWING PARTICIPANTS OF A MULTIMEDIA NETWORK CONFERENCE

(75) Inventors: Mathrubootham Janakiraman,

Redmond, WA (US); Kyle A. Larsen,
Mercer Island, WA (US); Senthil K.
Velayutham, Redmond, WA (US)

(73) Assignee: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 714 days.

(21) Appl.No.: 09/931,211

(22) Filed: Aug. 16, 2001

(51) Int. CI.

G06F15/16 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 709/204; 709/228

(58) Field of Classification Search 709/200 225,

709/227-248; 370/260-265; 379/90; 725/38,

725/54

See application file for complete search history.

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* cited by examiner

Primary Examiner—Asad M Nawaz

(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Senniger Powers LLP

(57) ABSTRACT

In a network multimedia conference, a bridge service that functions as a proxy for a client to join the conference dynamically selects a video stream from multiple video streams originating from the other participants of the conference and sends the selected video stream to the client for viewing. The bridge service monitors conferencing events of each participant and updates conferencing activity state variables of the participant, such as whether the participant is being shown to the client, whether the participant is talking, how long the participant has been shown or not shown, etc. Periodically, a weight assigned to each of the participants is computed based on the state variables, and the video stream of the participant with the highest weight is then selected for viewing by the client.

20 Claims, 8 Drawing Sheets