Video Frame Benchmarking for Low-Bandwidth Conference Joining
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Joining a video conference as a new participant requires transmitting full frames of video to the new participant, which incurs significant bandwidth costs and strains network resources, while existing participants rely on differential frames that the new participant lacks.
Innovation Solution
The video conference provider generates an instantaneous decoder refresh (IDR) frame for the new participant and determines prior frames acknowledged by existing participants, creating a benchmark frame based on these frames and the IDR frame, ensuring all participants are synchronized by transmitting the IDR frame to the new participant and the benchmark frame to existing participants.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If full video frames are transmitted to a new participant joining a video conference, then the new participant can be synchronized with existing participants, but bandwidth usage increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The video frame transmission is segmented into two distinct components: an IDR frame containing complete video data for the new participant, and differential frames containing only changes for existing participants. This segmentation allows each participant type to receive appropriately sized data packets, resolving the contradiction between synchronization reliability and bandwidth consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
Different quality levels of video data are provided to different participants based on their specific needs. The new participant receives full-quality IDR frames for complete synchronization, while existing participants receive lower-bandwidth differential frames. This local quality differentiation maintains synchronization reliability for the new participant without unnecessarily increasing bandwidth usage for all participants.
2Loss of energy
If differential frames are used for existing participants, then bandwidth usage is reduced, but a new participant lacks the baseline frames needed to interpret them
Solution Approach 1:
Before transmitting differential frames to existing participants, the system performs a preliminary action by generating and transmitting an IDR frame to the new participant. This preliminary full-frame transmission establishes the necessary baseline, allowing the new participant to subsequently interpret differential frames without increasing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The IDR frame acts as an intermediary element that bridges the gap between new and existing participants. It provides the new participant with the baseline information needed to interpret differential frames, while the differential frames themselves remain optimized for bandwidth efficiency. This intermediary approach resolves the contradiction between bandwidth reduction and synchronization capability.
Data Source
AI summary
One disclosed example method includes receiving, by a video conference provider, video frames from a plurality of existing participants in a video conference; receiving, by the video conference provider, a request from a new user to join the video conference, and in response: generating, by the video conference provider, an instantaneous decoder refresh (IDR) frame; determining, by the video conference provider, one or more prior video frames previously acknowledged by each existing participant of the plurality of existing participants; generating, by the video conference provider, a benchmark frame for each of the plurality of existing participants based on at least one of the determined one or more prior video frames and the IDR frame; transmitting, by the video conference provider, the IDR frame to the new user; and transmitting, by the video conference provider, a message comprising the benchmark frame to each of the plurality of existing participants.