Stream Out Buffer for Low Power Video Composition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current video composition techniques are computationally expensive and power-intensive, especially when handling multiple sources of video content, due to the need for alpha blending, which can be costly in terms of processing resources and battery life, particularly on mobile devices.
Innovation Solution
The method involves generating transparency data for video content surfaces, which allows for skipping blending operations in fully transparent regions and copying these regions directly, while performing blending only in non-transparent areas, thereby optimizing processing and reducing power consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If alpha blending is performed at each pixel to composite video frames and user interface, then video composition quality is improved, but computational cost and power usage increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the user interface frame into multiple blocks and generates a transparency indicator for each block. This segmentation allows the system to identify fully transparent blocks and skip blending operations for those regions, while only performing alpha blending in blocks that contain non-transparent content. This directly reduces computational cost and power usage while maintaining composition quality in visible regions.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of performing alpha blending across the entire frame, the patent applies blending only partially - specifically, only in blocks where the transparency indicator indicates non-transparent content. This partial action approach maintains necessary composition quality while avoiding unnecessary computational expenditure in transparent regions, thereby reducing power consumption.
2Productivity
If transparency detection is performed for every frame, then blending operations can be optimized, but processing speed decreases due to the slow detection technique
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by generating transparency indicators for blocks in advance, before the actual blending operation. The transparency indicator generation identifies which blocks contain non-transparent content, allowing the system to pre-determine where blending is necessary. This preliminary analysis optimizes subsequent blending operations while maintaining acceptable processing speed through efficient block-level analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses copying by replicating the transparency indicator generation approach across multiple frames. Once transparency indicators are generated for a frame, the same blocking and indicator generation process can be quickly applied to subsequent frames, allowing efficient batch processing without significantly reducing overall frame processing speed.
3Use of energy by moving object
If computational resources are reduced to save power, then power consumption decreases, but video composition capability is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the frame into blocks and generating transparency indicators at the block level, the patent enables selective composition processing. The system can reduce computational resources by skipping blending in transparent blocks while maintaining full composition capability in non-transparent blocks. This segmentation strategy preserves video composition capability where needed while reducing power consumption overall.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by treating different blocks differently based on their transparency characteristics. Blocks with non-transparent content receive full composition processing, while fully transparent blocks receive no blending operations. This localized approach maintains high composition capability in visible regions while minimizing computational resource usage in transparent regions, thereby reducing power consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques related to compositing video content are discussed. Such techniques may include generating transparency data for a surface of first video content and storing it in a stream out buffer, accessing the transparency data via the stream out buffer when there is no change to the surface of the first video content, and compositing the first video content with second video content based on the accessed transparency data.