Patent ID: 7596179

Claim:
A method for reducing the resolution of media data, said method comprising: accessing compressed input data for a frame of a plurality of frames at a transcoder device, wherein said frame is at a first resolution and comprises a plurality of macroblocks, wherein said plurality of macroblocks comprises a plurality of subsets of macroblocks that are to be encoded as a single output macroblock; selecting a data processing function at said transcoder device according to the number of macroblocks in a subset of said plurality of subsets that are characterized as intra-coded, wherein said selecting is performed for each of said plurality of subsets; if all of said macroblocks in said subset are characterized as intra-coded, downsampling said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device in a compressed domain to generate said single output macroblock comprising compressed downsampled data at a second resolution that is reduced relative to said first resolution; if less than all of said macroblocks in said subset are characterized as intra-coded and if said number of macroblocks in said subset characterized as intra-coded satisfies said threshold, decompressing only macroblocks of said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device that are not intra-coded, compressing said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device, and downsampling said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device in said compressed domain to generate said single output macroblock comprising compressed downsampled data at said second resolution that is reduced relative to said first resolution; if said number of macroblocks in said subset characterized as intra-coded does not satisfy said threshold, decompressing said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device, downsampling said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device, and encoding said subset of macroblocks at said transcoder device to generate said output macroblock comprising compressed downsampled data at said second resolution that is reduced relative to said first resolution, wherein said accessing, said selecting and said downsampling are performed prior to transmitting over a wireless network; and transmitting said output macroblock comprising compressed downsampled data from said transcoder device to a wireless device over said wireless network.