US 7,295,548 · Granted 2007-11-13

How Microsoft Taught Old TVs to Talk Over WiFi

Imagine your DVD player, cable box, and speakers all in different rooms, but they all work together seamlessly over the internet instead of with tangled cables. This patent describes a converter box that translates old-school analog signals into digital packets that travel across your home network, then syncs everything so the picture and sound arrive at exactly the same time.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a method for taking audio and video streams from any source device and packaging them into data packets that travel over an IP network to multiple output devices simultaneously. What's protected here is the specific process of converting analog signals to digital network format, synchronizing the received packets so they play in perfect unison across different rooms, and the hardware 'brick device' that acts as a translator between legacy A/V equipment and modern networked systems. The patent also protects the technique of adjusting timing to compensate for network delays and other transmission quirks.

Why it matters

This patent was filed in 2002, when home networks were still new and most people's entertainment systems were wired with individual cables. By protecting a method to disaggregate A/V components and reconnect them over IP, Microsoft staked out early territory in the home networking space. The real value was in solving the synchronization problem—if audio and video don't arrive at the same time, the user experience falls apart. This kind of infrastructure thinking became foundational to streaming entertainment systems and multi-room audio.

Real-world use

When you stream a movie from your phone to a smart TV across your WiFi network, or play music in multiple rooms from a single source, you're relying on the same core ideas this patent locks down: packaging media for network transport and keeping everything perfectly in sync.

Original USPTO abstract

The present invention is directed to a method and system for disaggregating and connecting A/V components, and communicating A/V content stream information. An A/V stream from a source device is packaged for transmission over an IP network to one or more output devices. A brick device enables the integration of legacy A/V systems into the network supported A/V system. The brick device operates to provide analog signal and IP protocol conversion, along with the synchronization of received A/V stream data packets. The rendering and play of the A/V stream content on multiple output devices is synchronized to overcome distortions and other network idiosyncrasy and to facilitate a pleasant user experience.

Patent details

Publication number: US 7,295,548
Filing date: 2002-11-27
Grant date: 2007-11-13
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
Inventor(s): BLANK WILLIAM THOMAS, GRAY, III DONALD M, ATKINSON ROBERT GEORGE, VALAVI ANAND
CPC class: H04N21/43615

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