Teleconferencing System Individual Stream Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing teleconferencing systems fail to effectively address speaker overlap and audio/visual clarity issues, where multiple speakers talking simultaneously or soft voices are difficult to hear due to noise, and participants in broadcast mode cannot easily follow the conversation, with video focus often limited to the main speaker.
Innovation Solution
A conferencing system that individually records audio and video streams from all participants, allowing attendees to request and playback specific streams, including the ability to fast forward or skip sections, using a GUI or voice commands, enabling clearer understanding of individual contributions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If the mixed stream of all conference participants is recorded and played back, then the playback system is simple and the recorded content is complete, but participants cannot understand what is being said when multiple speakers overlap or when soft voices are obscured by noise
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the mixed conference stream into individual participant streams, allowing each speaker to be recorded and played back separately. This enables listeners to select and hear only the individual streams they want to understand, eliminating the problem of speaker overlap and noise obscuring soft voices.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a stream selector as an intermediary component between the recorded streams and the playback device. This selector allows users to choose which individual participant streams to hear during playback, providing control over the audio content without requiring changes to the recording system itself.
2Loss of information
If the video system focuses only on the main speaker, then the video feed is clear and simple, but participants cannot see what other participants are doing or displaying
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the video feed into individual participant video streams, similar to how audio streams are segmented. This allows the video system to display multiple individual participant feeds simultaneously or allow selection of specific participant feeds, providing complete visual information about all participants while maintaining system simplicity through modular stream handling.
3Ease of operation
If participants in broadcast mode receive only the mixed stream, then the system is simple to operate, but they cannot request repetitions or clarify misunderstandings
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a stream selector as an intermediary that allows broadcast-mode participants to choose specific individual participant streams to hear during playback. This maintains the simplicity of broadcast mode operation while enabling participants to selectively listen to individual speakers for clarification, eliminating misunderstandings without requiring complex two-way communication.
Data Source
AI summary
A teleconferencing system receives at least two streams that are parts of a live conference and individually records at least one of the streams. During the conference, a conferencing system receives a request from a communication device that is participating in the conference for at least a portion of at least one but not all of the recorded streams and in response sends the requested portion(s) of the stream to the communication device. The communication device can then play back the requested portion(s) of the recorded stream(s) to a participant in the conference. The streams may be audio and/or video streams.