Patent ID: 8421840

Claim:
An audiovisual communication system for transmitting a plurality of video signals and associated signals, if any, over a communication network for presentation to one or more end users, wherein the video signals are scalably coded into layers including a base layer and one or more enhancement layers, the system comprising: a receiver configured to receive the plurality of video and any associated audio signals over the communication network, determine a layout for the displayed video signals based on a set of criteria, and communicate information about the determined layout; a display, connected to the receiver, configured to display one or more of the received video signals using the determined layout; and one or more servers, connected to the communication network, adapted to receive the information about the determined layout, and configured to transmit the plurality of video and any associated audio signals over the communication network; wherein the one or more servers are configured to selectively transmit, for each of the plurality of video signals, no layers, the base layer, or the base layer and one or more enhancement layers, if any, that are necessary for displaying the video signals in the determined layout; wherein the one or more servers are further configured to determine which of the audio signals to selectively transmit by using audio activity indicators for each of the associated audio signals and an indication of whether the associated video signal is displayed in the determined layout, such that audio signal data is transmitted for one or more of the audio signals with the highest activity and audio signal data associated with one or more of the video signals that are displayed in the determined layout is transmitted, and no audio signal data is transmitted associated with the remaining video signals; wherein the receiver is further configured to maintain for the determined layout the number of views N and the number of enlarged views P, where P ranges from 0 to N−1, as well as the total number M of video signals each having an associated audio signal, and upon initialization or upon a change in N or P, determine a new layout and assign views to the new layout by: sorting the M signals by decreasing audio activity into a list F; if N or P changed, first assigning each video signal in F that was occupying a view in the determined layout to a view in the new layout that has the maximum overlap with the view that the video signal was assigned in the determined layout; then assigning each video signal remaining unassigned in F sequentially into the next available view in the new layout until all video signals in F are processed or until all views in the new layout are assigned a video signal.