Method for broadcasting multimedia signals towards a plurality of terminals

• US 20040261028A1
• Filed: 07/09/2004
• Published: 12/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Original Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Inventors: Cotarmanacʼh, Alexandre
• Granted Patent: US 7,398,543 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/723
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26275 for distributing content or additional data in a staggered manner, e.g. repeating movies on different channels in a time-staggered manner in a near video on demand system
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

The invention regards a method for broadcasting multimedia signals towards a plurality of terminals as a data flow comprising successive packets, being organised into sessions, a session comprising a set of packets forming a whole, at least some of said sessions being transmitted under several versions, corresponding to different starting moments. According to the invention, such a method implements a mechanism for merging versions of a same session, so that at least two versions starting at different moments use, at first, session portions which are peculiar to them, and, subsequently, a shared session potion.

Claims

1. A method for broadcasting multimedia signals towards a plurality of terminals as a data flow comprising successive packets,

the packets being organised into sessions, a session comprising a set of packets forming a whole,

at least some of the sessions being transmitted under several versions, corresponding to different starting moments,

wherein the method implements a mechanism for merging versions of a same session, so that at least two versions starting at different moments use, at first, session portions which are peculiar to them, and, subsequently, a shared session portion.

6. The method according claim 1, implementing the MPEG2 standard.

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein the data are of the MPEG4 type.

8. A multimedia signal having such a structure that it can be broadcast according to the method of claim 1.

9. A terminal comprising means for processing a multimedia signal broadcast according to the method of claim 1.

10. The terminal according to claim 9, comprising means for memorizing at least some session portions received in advance.

2. A method for broadcasting multimedia signals towards a plurality of terminals as a data flow comprising successive packets,

the packets being organised into sessions, a session comprising a set of packets forming a whole,

wherein each of the packets comprises a pointer allowing to identify, in the flow, the next packet of the corresponding session,

and wherein the flow is organised so that at least some of the packets are identified as the next packet for at least two different packets in the flow.

3. The method according to claim 2, at least some of the sessions being transmitted under several versions, corresponding to different starting moments, wherein the pointer allows to identify in the flow the next packet of the corresponding session version,

and wherein the pointers of packets belonging to different versions of a session can point towards the same next packet, so as to merge versions.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the pointer comprises a version identifier, which can differ from the version identifier of the present packet.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein each of the packets comprises:

a present version identifier;

a next version identifier, which can either be;

the present version identifier;

or

a different version identifier, in case of versions merging.

11. A multimedia signal having such a structure that it can be broadcast according to the method of claim 2.

12. A terminal comprising means for processing a multimedia signal broadcast according to the method of claim 2.

13. The terminal according to claim 12, comprising means for memorizing at least some session portions received in advance.

14. A multimedia signal having such a structure that it can be broadcast according to the method of claim 3.

15. A terminal comprising means for processing a multimedia signal broadcast according to the method of claim 3.

16. The terminal according to claim 15, comprising means for memorizing at least some session portions received in advance.

17. A multimedia signal having such a structure that it can be broadcast according to the method of claim 4.

18. A terminal comprising means for processing a multimedia signal broadcast according to the method of claim 4.

19. A multimedia signal having such a structure that it can be broadcast according to the method of claim 5.

20. A terminal comprising means for processing a multimedia signal broadcast according to the method of claim 5.