Patent ID: 8446846

Claim:
A method of passing user signal events through a packet-based audio mixer device implementing a conference application and having a plurality of user inputs and a plurality of user outputs, said method comprising: decoding and detecting a signal event in incoming audio packets at one or more of said user inputs, the signal event comprising information content for controlling a device; placing a meta data representation of said signal event in an audio buffer with a user's audio data associated with the user input at which the event was detected; passing said meta data representation through said audio mixer with the user's audio data to a user output with a packet audio stream; and selectively regenerating, from said meta data representation, said signal event at a user output, wherein selectively regenerating comprises selecting between ignoring the meta data, regenerating the meta data as an in-band signaling event, and regenerating the meta data as an out-of-band signaling event, wherein said signal event comprises an in-band audio event, a decoder decodes audio streams at a user input, and said in-band audio event is detected by an audio event detector and converted to said meta data representation for placement in said audio buffer, and wherein said in-band audio event comprises a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) event, which is decoded and converted to said meta data representation.