Patent ID: 8233534

Claim:
A method for frame buffer video compression on an input video stream to efficiently allocate and utilize memory used for storing reference frames in a video decoder, said method comprising: parsing a video header to obtain a maximum number of reference frames N; dividing an available frame buffer memory to hold N+1 compressed frames; controlling a compression process to limit a size of each frame such that said size is not less than a frame buffer memory size divided by N+1; parsing messages that contain reference frames by looking ahead in an input video stream buffer of said input video stream; and allocating memory for compressing a given reference frame based on a number of needed frames at a frame buffer, wherein a first frame is decoded by looking ahead three frames to know which frames are said reference frames, and only reference frames are compressed and stored in said frame buffer, and wherein when a fourth frame is decoded, half of said frame buffer is allocated for a third reference frame and only one-fourth of said frame buffer is allocated for said fourth frame.