Dependent data stream transmission procedure

• US 20060136440A1
• Filed: 03/07/2003
• Published: 06/22/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Original Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Inventors: Cotarmanac'h, Alexandre
• Granted Patent: US 8,095,957 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• 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 21/631 Multimode Transmission, e.g. transmitting basic layers and enhancement layers of the content over different transmission paths or transmitting with different error corrections, different keys or with different transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64792 Controlling the complexity of the content stream, e.g. by dropping packets intermediate media network packet handling H04L65/765; proxy provisioning conversion or adaptation for reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data H04L67/5651; negotiation of resources in wireless networks H04W28/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A method for the transmission of data flows; data flows, server, terminal, method for reception and use corresponding thereto. The invention relates to a method for the transmission of at least one flow of data towards at least one terminal, said flow or flows being organized in the form of flow units, characterised in that at least some of said flow units comprise at least one pointer pointing towards at least one flow unit of said flow or another flow in order to optimize processing in the terminal and/or the useful flow rate of said flow(s).

Claims

1. Procedure for the transmission of at least one data stream to at least one terminal, in which said stream or streams are organised in stream units, wherein at least some of said stream units include at least one pointer that points to at least one stream unit of said stream or of another stream that may have been received previously in the terminal, called the required previous unit, so that the processing of said stream unit is not performed in said terminal if the required previous unit or units have not been received.

2. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein the procedure includes the transmission of at least two data streams that are transmitted independently;

one stream unit of a first stream pointing to at least one required previous unit of at least a second stream, in which said stream unit of the fist stream includes enrichment data of the data contained in the second stream(s).

3. Transmission procedure according to claim 2, wherein said data streams correspond to different hierarchical levels of hierarchical encoding, the processing of a stream unit of a given hierarchical level is only performed if the stream units of the corresponding lower hierarchical levels have been received.

4. Transmission procedure according to claim 2, wherein this stream unit points to at least one previous unit defining a sequence of required previous units.

5. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least one of said pointers allows recovering at least one required previous unit that includes the data allowing decoding and/or decrypting of the considered stream unit.

6. Transmission procedure according to claim 5, wherein said required previous unit or units include data that allows a terminal to decide whether the data of a considered stream unit must be decoded and/or decrypted, and then displayed after decoding.

7. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least one of said pointers point to data that can be known by said terminal, so that the latter can decide on its capacity or incapacity to process the corresponding stream unit.

8. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least one of said stream units includes at least one pointer pointing to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may be subsequently received.

9. Transmission procedure according to claim 8, wherein said stream unit or units that can be subsequently received posses a marker that allows linking with said pointer(s).

10. Transmission procedure accordingly to claim 8, wherein the pointers of at least two similar stream units transmitted at distinct times point to the same stream unit that can be subsequently received.

11. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein the procedure implements an indicator that specifies the role of the pointer(s) from among two of the roles belonging to the groups that include:

Designation of at least one previous stream unit that must be decoded to allow taking into account the considered stream unit;

Designation of at least one previous stream unit that includes the data necessary for decoding and/or decrypting the considered stream unit, and/or of a reference to a status of the protection system; and

Designation of at least one subsequent stream unit.

12. Transmission procedure according to claim 11, wherein at least some of said stream units include a dependency descriptor, which defines said role.

13. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least some of said stream units include a dependency marker that allows its identification as a required previous unit.

14. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein at least some of said stream units include an identification marker of said stream unit in said stream.

15. Transmission procedure according to claim 1, wherein the procedure is implemented at the synchronization level so that no previous processing of a received stream unit is necessary.

16. A stream of data transmitted according to the transmission procedure of claim 1.

22. The transmission procedure according to claim 1 and comprising a step of using said transmission procedure in one of the applications belonging to the group consisting of:

systematic broadcasting of a message before accessing a program selected by the user;

conditional access at a specific quality level and/or at a specific option of a program; and

interactive television.

17. A stream of data transmitted to and/or received from at least one terminal, and organised in stream units transmitted independently one from the other, wherein at least some of said stream units include at least one pointer that points to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may have been received previously in a terminal, called a required previous unit, so that the processing of said stream unit is not performed in said terminal if the required previous unit has not been received.

18. A server for data designed to be transmitted to at least one terminal, in the form of at least one data stream organised in stream units transmitted independently form each other, wherein at least some of said stream units include at least one pointer that points to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may have been received previously in a terminal, called a required previous unit.

19. A terminal that can receive at least one data stream organised in stream units transmitted independently from each other, wherein at least some of said stream units include at least one pointer that points to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may have been received previously in a terminal, called required previous unit.

20. A reception procedure of at least one data stream organised in stream units, transmitted independently from each other, wherein at least some of these stream units include at least one pointer that points to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may have been received previously in a terminal, called required previous unit.

21. Reception procedure according to claim 20, characterised in that at least one of said pointers points to at least one stream unit of said stream or another stream that may have been received previously in a terminal, called required previous unit, and in that it includes the following stages:

analysing said pointer(s) of a stream unit; and

processing said stream unit if the required previous unit or units are received.