Electronic devices that pan/zoom displayed sub-area within video frames in response to movement therein

1. An electronic device comprising:

a display; and

a controller configured to identify a location of a person moving within a displayable area of video frames, to detect movement of the person's mouth in the video frames and, responsive thereto, to identify the associated location of the person, and to pan/zoom a sub-area within the video frames that is displayed on the display in response to the identified location of the person speaking,

wherein the controller is further configured to identify characteristics of voice accompanying the video frames that is concurrently occurring with the detected movement of the person's mouth, and to correlate the identified voice characteristics with the identified location of the person.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to pan the displayed sub-area within a video frame to increase an amount of the person that is viewable on the display in response to the controller determining that a further portion of the person is outside the displayed sub-area but contained elsewhere within the video frame.

3. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to zoom-in to enlarge the displayed size of the person's face in a displayed sub-area within the video frames in response to identifying movement of the person's face.

4. The electronic device of claim 1 , further comprising a frame buffer that temporarily buffers streaming video frames received by the electronic device from a data network for a sufficient time for the controller to carry-out the pan/zoom within the associated buffered video frames.

5. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to detect occurrence of voice in the video frames having the identified voice characteristics of the person and, responsive thereto, to pan the displayed sub-area within the video frames toward the identified location of the person.

6. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to detect occurrence of voice in the video frames having the identified voice characteristics of the person and, responsive thereto, to zoom-in to decrease size of a displayed sub-area within the video frames at the identified location of the person and thereby enlarge the displayed person.

7. The electronic device of claim 6 , wherein the controller is further configured, after zooming-in, to gradually zoom-out to display increasingly larger sub-areas of the video frames at the location of the person to thereby shrink the displayed person.

8. The electronic device of claim 7 , wherein the controller is further configured to gradually zoom-out to display increasingly larger sub-areas of the video frames at the location of the person until another person who the controller has identified as having previously spoke and who is also concurrently contained within the video frames is also displayed.

9. The electronic device of claim 6 , wherein the controller is further configured, after zooming-in, to zoom-out to display a larger sub-area or an entire area of the video frames in response to detecting a voice in the video frames that does not correspond to a previously identified person who spoke in the displayed sub-area within the video frames.

10. The electronic device of claim 6 , wherein the controller is further configured, after zooming-in, to zoom-out to display a larger sub-area or an entire area of the video frames in response to detecting substantial change in content between at least one of the present video frames and at least one later occurring video frame.

11. The electronic device of claim 1 , further comprising a memory containing the video frames, wherein the controller is further configured to discard from the memory at least a substantial portion of data of the video frames that is outside the sub-area within the video frames to be displayed while retaining in the memory data of the video frames that is inside the sub-area within the video frames to be displayed.

12. An electronic device comprising:

a display; and

a controller configured to identify a location within a displayable area of video frames which has movement, and to control panning/zooming of a sub-area within the video frames that is displayed on the display in response to the identified location of the movement,

wherein the controller is further configured to enlarge a sub-area within one of the video frames at a previously identified location of movement in adjacent video-frames to create a displayable thumbnail picture in response to a user of the electronic device commanding stop or pause in the display of the video frames.

13. An electronic device comprising:

a wireless transceiver configured to receive video frames streaming across a wireless network;

a display; and

a controller configured to detect movement of a person's mouth within the video frames while the person is speaking and to identify the associated location of the person speaking, to identify characteristics of voice in the video frames that is concurrently occurring with the detected movement of the person's mouth, to correlate the identified voice characteristics with the identified location of the person speaking, to detect subsequent occurrence of voice in the video frames having the identified voice characteristics of the person and, responsive thereto, to pan a sub-area within the video frames displayed on the display toward the identified location of the person and/or to zoom-in to increase size of the person speaking by decreasing size of a sub-area within the video frames at the location of the speaker that is fit to the display.