Data structure for data streaming system

• US 20050120038A1
• Filed: 03/14/2003
• Published: 06/02/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Nilsson, Michael E., Jebb, Timothy R.
• Application Number:
  US10/508,122
• Publication Number:
  US 20050120038A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2401 Monitoring of the client buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream

Abstract

A data structure for storing a data source for a streaming system, the data source including a plurality of encoded data streams, each of the plurality of data streams being an independent representation of data from the data source encoded at a different resolution to the other of the plurality of data streams, the data structure comprising a header (600-680), a stream data structure (700) for each of the encoded data streams and one or more packets (800) of the encoded data streams, the header (600-680) being linked to one of the stream data structures (700), wherein each stream data structure (700) includes a header (705, 740, 750), a link (710) to a next stream data structure and a link (720) to a first packet of the encoded data stream.

Claims

1. A data structure for storing a data source for a streaming system, the data source including a plurality of encoded data streams, each of the plurality of data streams being an independent representation of data from the data source encoded at a different resolution to the other of the plurality of data streams, the data structure comprising a header (600-680), a stream data structure (700) for each of the encoded data streams and one or more packets (800) of the encoded data streams, the header (600-680) being linked to one of the stream data structures (700), wherein each stream data structure (700) includes a header (705,740, 750), a link (710) to a next stream data structure and a link (720) to a first packet of the encoded data stream.

2. A data structure according to claim 1, in which the plurality of encoded data streams are video data streams.

3. A data structure according to claim 1, including audio data encoded as a data stream.

4. A data structure according to claim 2, wherein stream data structures (700) for video and audio data streams include bit rate encoding data (740) for the respective data streams.

5. A data structure according to claim 2, wherein the data source further comprises a switching stream defining a plurality of switching points for switching between one of the video data streams and another of the video data streams, the data stream structure for the switching data stream including data on video streams and packets to and from which switching is possible.

6. A data structure according to claim 1, wherein the header of the data structure includes a link to the last stream data structure.

7. A data structure according to claim 1, wherein the header of a stream data structure includes a link (730) to the last packet the encoded data stream.

8. A data structure according to claim 1 encoded on a computer readable medium.