The Team behind the Transition from Intel Macs to M1 Macs describe a new video streaming system
Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to transporting of one or more video streams between a computer console and an electronic display device, including throttling a standard defined video stream bitrate of the one or more video streams to transport these video streams from the computer console to the electronic display device at a standard defined transport stream bitrate which is less than the standard defined video stream bitrate.
The patent lists Jeff Wilcox, Director of Mac System Architecture as one of the inventors. Wilcox is noted as having Led the transition for all Macs to Apple Silicon beginning with the M1 chip. The patent also lists Ian Shaeffer, Principal Architect of Macs as another inventor.
With the new M1 Max described as delivering higher multistream performance, it's difficult to know if this is a patent fulfilled or is describing something that's in the works for Apple's next gen Mac Pro Tower as the graphic implies.
In Apple's patent background they note that a computer console can be connected to various ancillary input and/or output electronic devices, often referred to as peripheral devices, which can provide various inputs to the computer console and/or receive various outputs from the computer console. These peripheral devices can include an electronic display device which receives images from the computer console over a transport stream and thereafter presents these images in a visual form onto a display panel, for example, an electroluminescent (ELD) display panel, a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel, a light-emitting diode (LED) display panel, a plasma display panel (PDP), or a quantum dot (QLED) display panel to provide some examples. This electronic display device is often characterized by its display resolution, its refresh rate, and its color depth.
Advances in display panel technology have allowed this electronic display device to display the images received from the computer console at greater resolutions, faster display refresh rates, and/or more color depths. As a result, the electronic display device needs to receive the images from the computer console at faster bitrates to drive its display panel at these greater resolutions, faster display refresh rates, and/or more color depths as display panel technology continues to advance.
However, the bitrates of the transport stream for transporting these images from the computer console to the electronic display device have remained constant as the display panel technology continues to advance. As a result, the electronic display device can no longer drive its display panel at these greater resolutions, faster display refresh rates, and/or more color depths by receiving images from the computer console at these constant bitrates as the display panel technology continues to advance.
Apple's patent covers an exemplary computer console can generate one or more video streams having image data relating to an image or a series of images, also referred to as video, to be presented by an electronic display device. In some embodiments, the one or more video streams can represent two (2) DisplayPort High Bitrate 3 (HBR3) video streams as specified in the DisplayPort HBR3 digital interface standard having a standard defined video stream bitrate of 64.8 Gbit/s per the two (2) DisplayPort HBR3 video streams.
The exemplary computer console can provide the one or more video streams to the electronic display device over one or more transport streams. In some embodiments, the one or more transport streams can represent one (1) Thunderbolt 3 transport stream having a standard defined transport stream bitrate of 40 Gbit/s per the one (1) Thunderbolt 3 transport stream.
The exemplary computer console can effectively throttle a video stream bitrate of the one or more video streams to be less than of the standard defined transport stream bitrate of the one or more transport streams to allow the transport of the one or more video streams over the one or more transport streams.
In some embodiments, the exemplary computer console can effectively throttle the video stream bitrate of the one or more video streams from the standard defined video stream bitrate of 64.8 Gbit/s per the two (2) DisplayPort HBR3 video streams by 60% to be 38.88 Gbit/s per the two (2) DisplayPort HBR3 video streams to allow the transport of the one or more video streams using the 40 Gbit/s standard defined transport stream bitrate of the one (1) Thunderbolt 3 transport stream.
Apple's patent FIG. 2 below graphically illustrates an exemplary operation of an exemplary computer console within the exemplary computing environment; FIG. 3 graphically illustrates a simplified block diagram of the exemplary computer console.
Apple's patent FIG. 4 below illustrates a flowchart of an exemplary operation of the exemplary computer console.
(Click on image to Enlarge)
Engineers, developers and geeks may want to dive into the deeper details of Apple's patent application number 20210383740.
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