Patent ID: RE39955

Claim:
For use in a communications network having a plurality of nodes wherein a node may encode real-time information for propagating over said network, a method of processing said real-time information comprising the steps of: providing said node with a plurality of output buffers; (a) electronically capturing said real-time information and converting it into electronic data; (b) differentially encoding said electronic data using a previously stored transmit reference image as a base to produce differential data; (c) storing said differential data in one of said plurality of output buffers; (d) monitoring said network for access to propagate said differential data; repeating steps (a)-(d) until said node may propagate said differential data over said network; transmitting data over said network from the one of said plurality of output buffers providing a best differential data to a receiving node on said network, wherein said best differential data represents a differential data whose use in conjunction with the previously stored transmit reference image produces an image that approximates a current frame better than use of other differential data contained in said plurality of output buffers; and calculating a new transmit reference image based on said best differential data and said previously stored transmit reference image.