Virtual Meeting Media Sharing Without Video Stream Disruption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing virtual meeting platforms lack robust features for seamlessly sharing diverse media content such as images and videos, leading to disruptions, inefficiencies, and security risks, and often require cumbersome processes that distract participants and consume computing resources.
Innovation Solution
Participants can share media items by dragging and dropping them into the virtual meeting UI, allowing the media content to replace or be displayed alongside their video stream without disrupting the ongoing presentation, and media items are streamed directly to other participants, reducing the need for file downloads and minimizing security risks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If participants use existing virtual meeting platforms to share media content, then communication can occur, but the process is cumbersome and disrupts the ongoing presentation
Solution Approach 1:
The system prepares media sharing in advance by having participants stage media items in a media bay before the actual sharing occurs. This preliminary arrangement allows for quick deployment during the meeting without disrupting the ongoing presentation, as the media is already positioned and ready for immediate display.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a media bay as an intermediary component between the participant's local media files and the main presentation display. This media bay acts as a staging area that buffers and manages media items, allowing seamless transitions without directly interrupting the ongoing presentation flow.
2Productivity
If participants share media items using existing platforms, then content can be transmitted, but computing resources are consumed and security risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as an intermediary that receives media items from participants and redistributes them to other participants. This intermediary approach eliminates the need for direct peer-to-peer file sharing, reducing security risks while maintaining efficient content transmission through centralized management and control.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of sharing original media files directly between participants, the system creates and distributes copies through the server. This copying mechanism allows efficient content transmission while maintaining security, as the server can control and manage the distribution of media copies without exposing participants to direct file access risks.
3Adaptability or versatility
If media items replace video streams in the virtual meeting UI, then media sharing is achieved, but the video stream is disrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual meeting UI is segmented into distinct regions: a media bay area for displaying shared media items and separate video stream regions for participant video feeds. This segmentation allows media items to be displayed without replacing or disrupting the video streams, as both can coexist in different spatial zones of the interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from a single-dimension display where media would replace video, to a multi-dimensional layout where media items are displayed in an additional dimension (the media bay). This dimensional change allows both media sharing and video stream continuity to occur simultaneously without conflict.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes providing a virtual meeting user interface (UI) including multiple regions each presenting a visual item corresponding to a video stream generated by one of a plurality of client devices of a plurality of participants of a virtual meeting. The method includes receiving a first request from a first participant of the multiple participants of the virtual meeting to share a first media item with other participants of the virtual meeting. The method includes identifying, in the virtual meeting UI, a first region presenting a visual item corresponding to a video stream generated by a first client device of the first participant. The method includes causing the first media item to be presented within the first region of virtual meeting UI.