Presenting information in a conference
One conferencing system allows conference participants to share all or a portion of the display seen on their computer screens. The conferees may be at sites removed from each other, or may view a recorded presentation or archived conference at different times. Conference participants are either “presenters” who can modify the display or “attendees” who cannot modify the display. A pointer icon, which can be labeled to identify the conferee, is displayed on the shared image area. Each conferee can modify the position of his or her own pointer, even when not presenting, so that every participant can see what each conferee is pointing to, should a conferee choose to point to an element of the display. These and other features apply to other data streams shared in the conference or in meetings where there is no shared-image data stream.
1. A method of transporting video over a network, the method comprising:
compressing video into a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of levels, a plurality of the levels corresponding to a particular degree of compression;
estimating bandwidth of the network;
selecting one of the plurality of levels of each of the plurality of frames to transmit over the network in accordance with the bandwidth estimate, whereby the level selected optimizes the use of the bandwidth of the network; and
sending the selected level of each of the plurality of frames over the network.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to a base compression level.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to a compression difference level.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to an uncompressed level.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to an uncompressed difference level.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected level of frames of each of the plurality of frames is sent to an attendee of a video conference associated with a client computer.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising classifying the client computer performance, the one of the plurality of levels based selected in accordance with the client computer performance.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of frames are stored in queues associated with the plurality of levels.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the frames are ordered by time stamp information within each queue.
10. A system for transporting video over a network, the system comprising:
a processor; and
a memory, the memory including one or more modules executable by the processor to compress video into a plurality of frames, each frame comprising a plurality of levels, a plurality of the levels corresponding to a particular degree of compression, estimate bandwidth of the network, select one of the plurality of levels of each of the plurality of frames to transmit over the network in accordance with the bandwidth estimate, whereby the level selected optimizes the use of the bandwidth of the network;
and send the selected level of each of the plurality of frames over the network.
11. The system of claim 10 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to a base compression level.
12. The system of claim 10 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to a compression difference level.
13. The system of claim 10 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to an uncompressed level.
14. The system of claim 10 , wherein a level of the plurality of levels corresponds to a an uncompressed difference level.
15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the selected level of frames of each of the plurality of frames is sent to an attendee of a video conference associated with a client computer.
16. The system of claim 15 , the one or more modules further executable by the processor to classify the client computer performance, the one of the plurality of levels based selected in accordance with the client computer performance.
17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of frames are stored in queues associated with the plurality of levels.
18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the frames are ordered by time stamp information within each queue.