Vehicle entertainment system

• US 10,136,164 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2018
• Issued: 11/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Margis, Paul, Rhoads, Cedric, Watson, Philip, Blackwell, Nigel, Szilagyi, Attila, Bedekar, Neil
• Primary Examiner(s): Schnurr, John R
• Application Number:
  US15/909,852
• Publication Number:
  US 20180192078A1
• Time in Patent Office: 264 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/44 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2146 located in mass transportation means, e.g. aircraft, train or bus flight-deck installations for entertainment or communications B64D11/0015; arrangements specially adapted for transportation systems in broadcast systems H04H20/62; moving wireless networks H04W84/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47211 for requesting pay-per-view content payment schemes payment architectures or payment protocols G06Q20/00, G07F
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104

Abstract

A vehicle entertainment system including a server storing media files, and smart monitors. Each smart monitor presents media selections corresponding to the media files and receives an input from passengers for playing a selection. Each smart monitor includes local content storage storing a subset of the media files. A network connects the smart monitors and server. Program logic executed by each smart monitor performs tasks including determining if a media file corresponding to an input is available from a first source, and if available, playing the media file from the first source; if the media file is not available there, determining if the media file required is available from a second source and if available, playing the media file from the second source; and if the media file is not available from the second source, determining if the media file is available from a third source.

Claims

1. A system for providing entertainment on a vehicle for passengers, the system comprising:

a server disposed in the vehicle in which the server stores media files;

smart monitors disposed in the vehicle in which each smart monitor is configured to present media selections to passengers corresponding to the media files stored by the server and receive an input from a passenger for playing one of the selections, each smart monitor including local content storage storing a subset of media files stored by the server;

seat boxes connecting the smart monitors in communication with the server via a network, each seat box including a port normally used for receiving communications from the server, another port normally used for sending communications to another seat box, and distribution ports in communication with the smart monitors;

a redundant communication connection between at least one seat box and the server for use in the event of a communication path failure;

program logic executed by each seat box, the programming logic performing tasks including determining if the redundant communication connection is limited and if it is limited, the program logic performs monitoring to determine if communications from the server are being received from said another port.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein if communications from the server are being received from said another port, the program logic communicates to smart monitors in communication with at least one of the seat box'"'"'s distribution ports to not request media files from the server.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein each smart monitor executes program logic, the program logic of each smart monitor performing tasks including:

determining if a media file corresponding to the passenger'"'"'s input is available from local content storage of the smart monitor, and if available, playing the media file from the smart monitor'"'"'s local content storage; and

if the media file corresponding to the passenger'"'"'s input is not available from the smart monitor'"'"'s local content storage and unless said communication has been received from a seat box to not request media files from the server, determining if a media file corresponding to the request is available from the server and if available, communicating a request to the server to stream the media file to the smart monitor over the network from the server.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein if a communication has been received from a seat box to not request media files from the server and the media file is not available from local content storage of the smart monitor, the program logic of the smart monitor, determines if the media file is available from one of the other smart monitors and if available, communicates a request to said one of the other smart monitors to stream the media file over the network from said one of the other smart monitors to the smart monitor that communicated the request.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the network comprises a sub-network connecting to a first group of the smart monitors and another sub-network connecting to a second group of the smart monitors, and each smart monitor comprises program logic that will ignore a request to stream a media file to a smart monitor on a different sub-network.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the program logic determines if the redundant communication connection is limited based on a configuration file downloaded from the server.