Patent ID: 8724696

Claim:
A method for offloading decoding of encoded video data from a computer system executing a video player application to a remote display terminal, the method comprising: intercepting a video decoding function call from the video player application requesting graphics hardware assistance from the computer system to decode the encoded video data, wherein the video player application is configured to decode encoded video data and composite graphical overlays onto decoded video data; providing replacement video data to the video player application rather than a decoded version of the encoded video data in response to the video decoding function call; receiving, by the computer system, composite video data composited by the video player application, wherein the composite video data comprises the provided replacement video data and a graphical overlay; extracting, by the computer system, the graphical overlay from the received composite video data by subtracting the replacement video data from the composite video data; and transmitting the encoded video data and the extracted graphical overlay from the computer system to the remote display terminal, wherein the remote display terminal decodes the encoded video data and composites the graphical overlay onto the decoded video data to generate a final composite video data for display.