CN111787419A

CN111787419A - Pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway

Info

Publication number: CN111787419A
Application number: CN202010681494.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 蒋平; 卢晓光
Original assignee: Bofan Software Guangzhou Co ltd
Current assignee: Bofan Software Guangzhou Co ltd
Priority date: 2020-07-15
Filing date: 2020-07-15
Publication date: 2020-10-16

Abstract

The invention discloses a pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway, which comprises a power supply module, an expansion board, a main system board, a memory and at least one plugging component. The expansion board is provided with at least one insertion expansion port. One end of the plug-in component is electrically connected with the expansion board through the plug-in expansion port, and the other end of the plug-in component is connected with an external video signal source. The expansion board communicates with the main system board through a bus. The power supply module supplies power to the expansion board and the main system board. The invention converts the external video signal source into the unified digital signal video stream which can be identified by the main system board through the plug-in component, and integrates the data of various protocols and different formats, thereby enabling various devices to be simultaneously accessed into the video network. And no extra decoding equipment is needed, and the device can be used in a plug-and-play manner, so that the deployment work is greatly simplified.

Description

Pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of video transmission and processing, in particular to a pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway.

Background

With the development of network and electronic technology, more and more video acquisition and transmission devices are provided, and the application scenes of remote videos are more and more extensive. Application scenes in the fields of security, video conference, network teaching, live entertainment, telemedicine and the like have increased demands on video processing and transmission.

Video transmission and processing technologies are not standardized in time in the development process, so that numerous and complicated protocols, formats, various interfaces and the like exist in the current video field, and a plurality of types of video acquisition, processing and transmission equipment are incompatible at present. And more new software and hardware products with different specifications are continuously produced. The multi-path video processing and transmission of the complex devices and the complex environments are solved by a video gateway at present. The video gateway is a protocol converter, also called an inter-network connector, and the video gateway realizes network interconnection above a network layer, namely network interconnection. Which is used between two systems that differ in communication protocol, data format or language, and even in an entirely different architecture. A video gateway is a node that connects two or more administratively distinct networks/subnetworks, and is a store-and-forward device. The video gateway is a high-performance embedded multifunctional media gateway device, and integrates core functions of streaming media protocol conversion, streaming media distribution service, multi-channel video decoding, video image segmentation and the like.

The compatibility of the existing video gateway is not good, and the existing video gateway is basically only compatible with other types of video products of the same brand or a limited number of open protocols. And the video gateway has single function and basically only has video exchange and storage service. Its interfaces are also limited, resulting in limited types of networks and lines that can be externally connected. The common video gateway products and schemes in the market have the following disadvantages:

(1) only the signal format appointed by the product can be accepted, and other formats except the appointed format are not compatible.

(2) The types of accessible signal sources are few, and most of them only support RTSP (Real Time streaming protocol, which is an application layer protocol in TCP/IP protocol system) format or analog AV (video playback, which is an abbreviation for audio and video) signals based on the network.

(3) In order to access the heterogeneous signals, a decoding device of a third party or an external PC is additionally added for collecting and decoding. The installation and debugging are extremely troublesome, and the mobility is greatly reduced.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway, which solves the problems that in the prior art, the video gateway has fewer accessed signal formats and fewer signal source types, and decoding equipment needs to be added for accessing heterogeneous signals.

The purpose of the invention is realized by the following technical scheme:

the pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway comprises a power supply module, an expansion board, a main system board, a memory and at least one plugging component; the expansion board is provided with at least one plug-in expansion port; one end of the inserting component is electrically connected with the expansion board through the inserting expansion port, and the other end of the inserting component is connected with an external video signal source; the expansion board is communicated with the main system board through a bus; the power supply module supplies power to the expansion board and the main system board; the memory is used for loading an operating system and application programs and storing video files recorded from the video stream.

Furthermore, the plug-in component communicates with the expansion board through a standard protocol.

Further, the standard protocol includes, but is not limited to, TCP/IP protocol or UDP protocol.

Furthermore, the plug-in component converts an external video signal source into a unified digital signal video stream which can be identified by the main system board.

Furthermore, the plug-in expansion port is a standard interface; the standard interface includes but is not limited to a PCI interface or an RJ45 network interface.

Furthermore, the main system board is provided with at least one general input/output interface.

Furthermore, the main system board comprises a wireless module, and the wireless module receives audio and video signals sent by external equipment in a wireless mode.

The pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway enables data of various protocols and different formats to be decoded and converted by the plugging component after the data of various protocols and different formats are connected with the video gateway, obtains the video stream which can be identified by a main system, unifies the data of various protocols and different formats, and enables various devices to be simultaneously accessed into a video network. The pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway integrates acquisition, exchange and service, and reduces the number of external conversion equipment. And simultaneously, the software of the main system board provides live broadcast and video conference services of a mainstream protocol through an integrated network interface. For the access support of the old video solution, a large number of old lines and equipment can be reused, the original investment of a user is protected, and the construction and implementation progress of a video project is accelerated.

The pluggable design of the invention is beneficial to reducing the product cost, and is easy to access different devices and realize various external connection functions. The expansion board allows for the insertion of functional pluggable components, which are available on demand. Therefore, all interfaces and decoding chips which are possibly used are not required to be manufactured on one device, and the aim of accessing different devices to the video gateway can be achieved by replacing plug-in components with different functions according to actual use requirements. Therefore, the factory equipment has few integrated components and parts and is easy to expand in use.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a pluggable modular multi-functional video gateway of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a functional diagram of a video switching matrix according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENT (S) OF INVENTION

The embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The embodiments of the present disclosure are described below with specific examples, and other advantages and effects of the present disclosure will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the disclosure in the specification. It is to be understood that the described embodiments are merely illustrative of some, and not restrictive, of the embodiments of the disclosure. The disclosure may be embodied or carried out in various other specific embodiments, and various modifications and changes may be made in the details within the description without departing from the spirit of the disclosure. It is to be noted that the features in the following embodiments and examples may be combined with each other without conflict. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments disclosed herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.

The pluggable modular multi-function video gateway (MCU) of the present invention is shown in fig. 1. The system comprises a power supply module, an expansion board, a main system board, a memory (magnetic disk/SSD/SD) and at least one plug-in component. The expansion board is provided with at least one insertion expansion port, and the insertion component is electrically connected with the expansion board through the insertion expansion port. The expansion board communicates with the main system board through a bus. The power module supplies power to the expansion board and the main system board. The storage uses a SATA interface hard disk for loading an operating system, application programs, and storing video files recorded from the video stream.

The power module provides the matrix type power supply module according to the number and the power of the plug-in components, and the number of the power supply modules is increased according to the requirement.

The expansion board is internally arranged in the multifunctional video gateway, and has the main functions of providing a plug-in interface for the plug-in component, providing electric energy for the plug-in component, exchanging data with the plug-in component and communicating with the main system board through a bus. The plug-in extension port on the extension board is a standard interface, and is convenient to be connected with a plug-in component which is also the standard interface. The standard interface includes, but is not limited to, a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) interface, an RJ45 network interface with poe (powerover ethernet) function, and the like.

The plug-in components are multiple and are selected according to actual access requirements. One end of the plug-in component is plugged in the plug-in expansion port of the expansion board, and the other end is connected to an external video signal source through a cable. The plugging mode of the plugging component is similar to the mode of hot plugging a hard disk on a PC server. The expansion board supplies power to the plug-in component through the plug-in expansion port. A direct current power supply port can be additionally arranged at one end of the plug-in component exposed outside the MCU shell. The function of the plug-in component is realized by a micro embedded system or a functional chip, and the signal conversion mode of the plug-in component, which belongs to the prior art product, is not described in detail herein.

The plug member may perform a variety of functions including, but not limited to:

1. and the video signal acquisition and transcoding module is responsible for acquiring, transcoding and transmitting the heterogeneous video signals to the expansion board. Such as: AV and S terminals, VGA and HDMI interface videos can be collected.

2. And converting heterogeneous MCU information and decoding multiplexing information of the heterogeneous MCU.

3. And the mobile communication is realized by externally connecting a wifi/LAN/4G/5G module.

4. An expanded RJ45 port, and other functional interfaces.

The video signal converted by the plug-in component is a digital signal video stream which can be identified by the main system board, and the video stream converged by the expansion board is already classified into a video stream with a uniform format. Because the number of the plug-in components is multiple, various external devices can be connected at the same time, and different video source signals are converted into video streams which can be identified by a main system board with a uniform format. The beneficial effects that the data of various different protocols and different formats are unified and various devices are simultaneously accessed to the video network are achieved.

For example, the plug-in component collects external heterogeneous S-terminal analog video signals through an external cable, converts the signals into a unified digital signal video stream which can be recognized by the main system through the plug-in component, and transmits the unified digital signal video stream to the expansion board through the expansion interface, and the expansion board transmits the unified digital signal video stream to the main system through the bus for processing.

The plug-in component communicates with the expansion board through a standard protocol, which is a widely used protocol published in the industry, such as a TCP/IP protocol, a UDP protocol, and the like.

The main system board mainly comprises a CPU, a memory, a video exchange matrix chip, a general input/output interface and a wireless module. The video exchange matrix is used for receiving the audio and video stream sent by the expansion board and the wireless module, decoding, encoding, mixing, processing and switching the audio and video stream, combining, reforming and sending out the information according to a CPU control instruction. The video switching matrix comprises at least 2 multiplexing/demultiplexing modules, a control module, a voice module, an image module and a data module. The audio/video terminal and other MCU terminals send the audio/video stream or the multiplexed stream to the multiplexing/demultiplexing module, the control module controls the data flow direction, the multiplexing/demultiplexing module is used for multiplexing and demultiplexing the audio/video stream, the audio/video stream is respectively sent to the voice module, the image module and the data module for compression and shunt processing, the processed audio/video stream is returned to the multiplexing/demultiplexing module, the multiplexing/demultiplexing module is used for multiplexing and coding the voice, the image and the data and then the multiplexing/demultiplexing module is used for sending the audio/video stream to other MCU nodes or the audio/video terminals. The video switching matrix belongs to a mature technology, and the detailed signal conversion and processing procedures in the video switching matrix are not described in detail here. The video stream application endpoints are nodes for generating audio and video and playing audio and video, and are usually more than 2, such as A, B, C, D in fig. 2. The video switching matrix can be realized by using a special hardware chip, or can be realized by using a general-purpose computing chip and matching software, such as general-purpose computing of a GPU and MCU coding/decoding software.

The CPU of the main system board adopts the existing mature central processing chip, which can be an arm architecture or a general central processing unit such as X86, etc., and is used as a system control and calculation center to take charge of the control and most general calculations of the system. The operating memory uses ddr4 or newer memory chip die, which is used to temporarily store operating data in the CPU and data exchanged with external storage such as a hard disk. The general input/output Interface includes, but is not limited to, a VGA (Video Graphics Array) Interface, an HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), a 3.5mm stereo output Interface, a usb Interface, an RJ45 ethernet Interface, an RS232 Interface, and the like.

In a wireless network environment, the main system board can receive audio and video signals sent by an IPC (internet protocol camera), an external NAS (network storage) device and other network video devices through a wireless module. The audio and video signals received by the wireless module and the audio and video signals sent by the expansion board are processed by the video exchange matrix and then sent out through the universal input and output interface.

The pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway disclosed by the invention has the advantages that under the scene that various types of video equipment can be accessed, after the pluggable component with the corresponding function is selected in advance and plugged on the expansion board, only various signal lines are needed to be plugged into the pluggable component on site, audio and video signals can be acquired through the signal lines, various third-party decoding equipment or a PC (personal computer) for converting the signals is not needed to be installed, and the complicated connection debugging work on site is avoided. For example, live teaching needs to be performed in an operating room of a hospital for one interventional operation, signals of an IPC camera on site can be acquired through an Ethernet port (a universal input/output interface), a contrast video of DSA equipment is acquired through an S-terminal signal conversion plug-in component, a real-time electrocardiogram of an electrocardiogram monitoring device is acquired through an AV signal conversion plug-in component, and images of a remote classroom are transmitted to the operating room through a cascade plug-in component. The convergence processing of various signals can be completely solved by the pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway, and the field plug-in use and the pull-out removal are realized, so that the deployment work is greatly simplified.

The main system board runs an operating system and basic services, and the basic services include an SSH (Secure Shell protocol), a VPN communication protocol, an HTTP protocol, a management control system, a mainstream streaming media server, a built-in video conference management, a network service, and the like. Most basic services are implemented by software running on a main system board, and streaming media services are implemented by software in cooperation with an encoding/decoding chip or by pure software calculation. Decoding and de-mixing the video stream by the video processing chip of the main board to obtain the video stream of the live broadcast and the video conference. The software provides streaming services such as video push streaming service and network pull streaming service for the external stream. The live and video conference service logic and information services are implemented in software. Under the condition that the pluggable component is not inserted for function expansion, the host only provides the basic external access function of the function: the basic access functions are realized by connecting RJ45 network ports on a main system board. After the functional plug-in component is plugged in, the input of an unlimited variety of external video sources can be provided, and the communication capacity which is not available in some original hosts is increased.

The above description is for the purpose of illustrating embodiments of the invention and is not intended to limit the invention, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made without departing from the spirit and principle of the invention shall fall within the protection scope of the invention.

Claims

1. The pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway is characterized by comprising a power supply module, an expansion board, a main system board, a memory and at least one plugging component; the expansion board is provided with at least one plug-in expansion port; one end of the inserting component is electrically connected with the expansion board through the inserting expansion port, and the other end of the inserting component is connected with an external video signal source; the expansion board is communicated with the main system board through a bus; the power supply module supplies power to the expansion board and the main system board; the memory is used for storing video files.

2. The pluggable modular multi-function video gateway of claim 1, wherein said plug-in component communicates with the expansion board via a standard protocol.

3. The pluggable modular multi-functional video gateway of claim 1, wherein said standard protocol comprises but is not limited to TCP/IP protocol or UDP protocol.

4. The pluggable modular multi-function video gateway of claim 1, wherein said plug-in component converts an external video signal source into a unified digital video stream recognizable by the main system board.

5. The pluggable modular multi-functional video gateway of claim 1, wherein said plug-in expansion port is a standard interface; the standard interface includes but is not limited to a PCI interface or an RJ45 network interface.

6. A pluggable modular multi-functional video gateway as defined in claim 1, wherein said main system board is provided with at least one general purpose input-output interface.

7. The pluggable modular multifunctional video gateway of claim 1, wherein the main system board comprises a wireless module, and the wireless module receives audio/video signals sent by external devices in a wireless manner.