System and method for managing connections to servers delivering multimedia content

• US 20010047401A1
• Filed: 01/22/2001
• Published: 11/29/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Adam Nemitoff, Altay Murat, Brennan J. Mcternan, Vishal Bangia
• Original Assignee: Adam Nemitoff, Altay Murat, Brennan J. Mcternan, Vishal Bangia
• Inventors: Nemitoff, Adam, Murat, Altay, Bangia, Vishal, McTernan, Brennan J.
• Application Number:
  US09/767,602
• Publication Number:
  US 20010047401A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1877 Measures taken prior to transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1881 with schedule organisation, e.g. priority, sequence management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0442 wherein the sending and receiving network entities apply asymmetric encryption, i.e. different keys for encryption and decryption cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for public-key encryption H04L9/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/062 for key distribution, e.g. centrally by trusted party cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for key distribution involving a central third party H04L9/0819
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2871 Implementation details of single intermediate entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 : Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 : Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 : Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 : In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/164 : Adaptation or special uses of UDP protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/165 : Combined use of TCP and UDP protocols; selection criteria therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 : Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 : in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/194 : Transmission of image signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 : for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2343 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 : by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 : involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs

Abstract

A method and software for managing the process for establishing a connection to a server over a network for the delivery of multimedia content. For a selected item of content, the software downloads a list of available servers which can provide the content, with the list including servers of different types which transmit data in different ways. Examples of different types of servers include servers which support multicasting, servers which support UDP transmissions, and servers which support TCP transmissions. The software traverses the guide and sequentially attempts to establish connections to the servers in the guide, until either a connection is established or all servers in the guide have been tried.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for managing a retrieval of multimedia content over a computerized network, the network having a plurality of servers connectable to one or more clients, the method comprising:

(a) retrieving at a first client a server guide identifying a list of servers capable of delivering a selected item of multimedia content;

(b) the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to a first server identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item;

(c) if the connection may be made, the first client establishing a connection with the first server to retrieve the selected content item therefrom;

(d) if the connection is unable to be made, the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to a second server identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item; and

the first client repeating steps (c) and (d) for the second server and any additional server identified in the server guide until a connection may be made to a server by which the selected content item may be delivered.

2. The method of

claim 1

, comprising selecting the multimedia content item from a list of available items.

3. The method of

claim 1

, wherein retrieving the server guide comprises retrieving the guide from a guide server, and comprising the guide server storing a plurality of server guides for the content item and selecting one of the stored server guides upon receipt of a request from the client.

4. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the servers identified in the server guide include one or more routers connectable to a content server, the content server storing the selected content item.

5. The method of

claim 4

, wherein the first server is a multicast router and the second server is a multicast-in unicast-out proxy configured to receive data from the multicast router and provide a unicast connection to the first client.

6. The method of

claim 5

, wherein a third server identified in the server guide is a multicast-in unicast-TCP-out proxy configured to receive requests for parts of the content item from clients, subscribe to the multicast router, and deliver to clients data packets representing requested parts of the content item.

7. The method of

claim 6

, wherein the steps of automatically determining whether a connection may be made are performed first for the multicast address, then for the multicast-in unicast-out proxy router, and then for the multicast-in unicast-TCP-out proxy.

8. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the server guide lists the servers in a given sequence, and wherein the steps of automatically determining whether a connection may be made are performed according to the given sequence of servers listed in the server guide.

9. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the server guide identifies each server in the list through a server address and server type.

10. A computer implemented method for managing a retrieval of multimedia content from a content server over a computerized network, the network having a plurality of servers connectable to one or more clients, the method comprising:

retrieving at a first client a server guide identifying a list of servers capable of delivering a selected item of multimedia content from the content server, the list including a multicast router and a multicast-in unicast-out proxy router;

the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to the multicast router identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item;

if the connection may be made to the multicast router, the first client establishing a connection with the multicast router to retrieve the selected content item therefrom;

if the connection is unable to be made to the multicast router, the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to the multicast-in unicast-out proxy router identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item; and

if the connection may be made to the multicast-in unicast-out proxy router, the first client establishing a connection with the multicast-in unicast-out proxy router to retrieve the selected content item therefrom.

11. The method of

claim 10

, wherein the list of servers further includes a multicast-in unicast-TCP-out proxy, and comprising, if the connection is unable to be made to the multicast-in unicast-out proxy router, the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to the multicast-in unicast-TCP-out proxy identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item.

12. A computer readable medium storing program code for, when executed, causing a computer to perform a method for managing a retrieval of multimedia content over a computerized network, the network having a plurality of servers connectable to one or more clients, the method comprising:

(a) retrieving at a first client a server guide identifying a list of servers capable of delivering a selected item of multimedia content;

(b) the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to a first server identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item;

(c) if the connection may be made, the first client establishing a connection with the first server to retrieve the selected content item therefrom;

(d) if the connection is unable to be made, the first client automatically determining whether a connection may be made to a second server identified in the server guide to achieve delivery of the selected content item; and

the first client repeating steps (c) and (d) for the second server and any additional server identified in the server guide until a connection may be made to a server by which the selected content item may be delivered.

13. A system for establishing a connection over a network to retrieve multimedia content, the system comprising:

a memory device storing a server guide identifying a list of servers capable of delivering a selected item of multimedia content, the list including servers differing in transmission techniques; and

a connection manager for automatically attempting to establish a connection to the servers contained in the list one at a time and, upon determining that a connection can not be established for a given server, attempting to establish a connection to another server in the list until a connection is established or connections can not be established to all servers.

14. The system of

claim 13

, wherein the list of servers includes at least one server configured to multicast the content item and at least one server configured to unicast the content item.

15. The system of

claim 14

, wherein the list of servers includes two or more of the following:

a multicast router, a multicast-in unicast-out proxy router, and a multicast-in unicast-TCP-out proxy.