Patent ID: 7903117

Claim:
A method for processing media information, comprising: identifying a custom processing module to be used in processing media information, to provide an identified custom processing module; determining a media processing path from among a plurality of media processing paths to be used to process the media information using the identified custom processing module, the media processing path determined at least partially based on: (1) a security level associated with the media information, and (2) a format used to express the media information; based on the determining, creating a graph for rendering the media information that includes the identified custom processing module, to provide a created graph; and rendering the media information using the created graph, wherein the plurality of media processing paths involves: a first graph that includes a media processing pipeline that is in-process with respect to an application which interacts with the media processing pipeline, wherein the application sets the custom processing module in the in-process media processing pipeline, and a second graph that includes a media processing pipeline that is out-of-process with respect to the application, wherein the application sets the custom processing module in the out-of-process media processing pipeline, whereby details of the custom processing module's operation within the out-of-process media processing pipeline are removed from the application, the second graph further including a sequencer source module configured to: provide a dialog with a media session to queue and start consecutive topologies, the topologies having media information comprising multiple sources, the media session being configured to feed the media information to one or more sinks and switch seamlessly between consecutive topologies; aggregate the multiple sources as a single source; and queue the media information for processing; and wherein the application is enabled to supply the custom processing module in a manner which is independent of the media processing path that is invoked and wherein both the in-process media processing pipeline and the out-of-process media processing pipeline communicate their respective output results to a compositing engine which combines the two streams to achieve a superimposition effect.