Patent ID: 7733915
Filing Date: 2010-06-08
Classification: G06F,G09G

Abstract:
1. In a digital packet based multimedia system having a multimedia source device coupled to a multimedia display device by way of bi-directional auxiliary channel line arranged to transfer information between the display device and a source device and vice versa and a unidirectional main link line arranged to carry multimedia data packets in the form of an multimedia data packet stream from the multimedia source device to the multimedia display device wherein each of the multimedia data packets includes at least a multimedia data packet header, wherein the main link line is physically separate from the auxiliary channel line, a method of reducing multimedia packet overhead, comprising: prior to commencement of transmission of the data packets from the source device to the display device over the main link line, communicating via the auxiliary channel line multi-media data packet stream attributes to the display device, wherein the data packet stream attributes include information used by the display device to at least identify the data packets of a particular stream, to recover original data from the multimedia data packet stream and to format the multimedia data packet stream back to a data packet stream native data rate; replacing the data packet header with a corresponding reduced size data packet header for each of the multimedia data packets at the source device commensurate with the data packet stream attributes already communicated via the auxiliary channel line; streaming the multi-media data packets having the reduced size data packet header from the source device to the display device; and sending information associated with the streaming between the source device and the display device by way of the auxiliary channel line concurrent with the streaming, wherein there is no clock line.