Peer-to-peer architecture for sharing video on demand content

• US 20050055718A1
• Filed: 09/05/2003
• Published: 03/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Instrument Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: General Instrument Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stone, Christopher J.
• Application Number:
  US10/656,018
• Publication Number:
  US 20050055718A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/61
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25841 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; arrangements for identifying locations of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/51; location of the user terminal in data switching networks H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/615 Signal processing at physical level signal processing in analog two-way television systems H04N7/173
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

The present invention is a method for providing a peer-to-peer architecture for sharing VOD content. Instead of requiring a large server to store VOD content, VOD content is distributed among one or more content devices. Upon receiving a request to view requested VOD content, an intelligent agent determines which content device contains the requested VOD content. The requested VOD content is then communicated to the requesting content device. Thus, the present invention alleviates the need for a typical content server, and therefore results in a more robust, flexible, and inexpensive network.

Claims

1. A method of accessing requested content on a source content device connected to a network, said method comprising the steps of:

issuing a content access request identifying requested content;

determining the location of the source content device including the requested content in the network; and

accessing the requested content at the source content device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein issuing a content access request identifying requested content comprises issuing a content access request including a program identifier.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein issuing a content access request identifying requested content comprises issuing a content access request including the title of the requested content.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the location of the source content device including the requested content in the network comprises engaging an intelligent agent to determine the location of the source content device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the location of the source content device including the requested content in the network comprises examining the results from the intelligent agent for the information concerning the location of the source content device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the requested content at the source content device comprises accessing the content at the source content device across the network.

7. A method of storing content on a content device for access by a network including one or more content devices, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving content for access by the network;

querying one or more content devices to ascertain storage capacity;

determining the content device with the optimum storage capacity; and

uploading the content to the content device with the optimum storage capacity.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the content device with the optimum storage capacity comprises determining the content device with the largest amount of storage capacity.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein uploading the content to the content device with the optimum storage capacity comprises utilizing a trickle method.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein uploading the content to the content device with the optimum storage capacity comprises utilizing a high bandwidth push model.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein uploading the content to the content device with the optimum storage capacity comprises utilizing a data carousel method.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein uploading the content to the content device with the optimum storage capacity comprises utilizing an internet protocol method.