Sony patents video trick to cut lag in online games
Sony has a patent for a method to lower delay in online gaming by shrinking the size of key video frames sent over the network. The system makes these frames smaller by rotating or flipping them, then uses filters to help the receiver reconstruct the image without losing too much detail.
In the filing’s own words
Techniques are described for reducing latency in networked gaming by reducing I-frame sizes (which also results in automatically increasing P-frame sizes) to reduce the overall amount of video being transmitted. The reduced size of the I-frames is compensated for by increasing the size of other frames using a low pass filter (LPF) such as a Gaussian filter which reduces sharpness that the decoder can try to recover, or by use of lower resolution. The I-frame can be reduced by rotating it or flipping/mirroring it to produce the smaller coded frame, sending a flag to signal the orientation.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium communicatively coupled with the processor and having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed with the processor, cause the apparatus to: identify at least one condition of at least one network; determine whether an intraframe (I-frame) of a video is associated with a region of interest of the video; responsive to the condition and the determination of whether the I-frame of the video is associated with the region of interest of the video, reduce a size of the I-frame of the video; and send the I-frame and at least one non-I-frame to a transmitter for transmission over the network.
Facts
- Company
- Sony (Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.)
- Official title
- Reducing latency in networked gaming by reducing I-frame sizes
- Patent number
- US12758869B2
- Application number
- 18478174
- Filed
- Sep 29, 2023
- Granted
- Oct 13, 2026
- Inventors
- 5
- Claims
- 20
Classified under
A63F 13/335 Human necessitiesA63F 2300/534 Human necessitiesMore from Sony in Networks & wireless
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.