Serial processing of data using information about the data and information about a streaming network

• US 20070091883A1
• Filed: 10/21/2005
• Published: 04/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Apostolopoulos, John, Wee, Susie
• Application Number:
  US11/255,762
• Publication Number:
  US 20070091883A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/147 according to rate distortion criteria rate-distortion as a criterion for motion estimation H04N19/567
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/159 Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/169 characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/184 the unit being bits, e.g. of the compressed video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/188 the unit being a video data packet, e.g. a network abstraction layer [NAL] unit
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/48 using compressed domain processing techniques other than decoding, e.g. modification of transform coefficients, variable length coding [VLC] data or run-length data motion estimation in a transform domain H04N19/547; processing of decoded motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/89 involving methods or arrangements for detection of transmission errors at the decoder
• 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 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2347 involving video stream encryption
• 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 21/64738 Monitoring network characteristics, e.g. bandwidth, congestion level data switched network analysis H04L41/14; monitoring functioning in data switched networks H04L43/0817; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• 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 7/1675 : Providing digital key or authorisation information for generation or regeneration of the scrambling sequence pseudo-random number generators in general G06F7/58

Abstract

Methods and systems thereof for streaming media data are described. A network includes a first node, a second node, and a communication path between the first and second nodes. Data packets containing data are accessed. The data is processed according to information about the data and according to information about the network.

Claims

1. In a network comprising a first node, a second node, and a communication path between said first and second nodes, a method of processing data at said first node, said method comprising:

accessing data comprising a plurality of data packets; and

processing said data according to information about said data and according to information about said network.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising processing said data according to information about said first node, said information about said first node selected from the group consisting of:

node resource usage and node resource availability.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said method further comprises:

using information about said network to select a node from said second and third nodes; and

sending processed data from said first node to said node that is selected.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said information about said network comprises information observed by said third node and provided to said first node.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said information about said network comprises information received from one or more nodes in communication with said third node.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said method further comprises:

using information about said data to select a node from said second and third nodes; and

sending processed data from said first node to said node that is selected.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said third node further processes said processed data received from said first node and sends the further processed data to another node in said network, wherein information about said processed data sent from said third node is provided to said first node and wherein said processing is also according to said information about said processed data sent from said third node.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein said third node further processes said processed data received from said first node, wherein information about the further processed data is used to select said node from said second and third nodes.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein said second node further processes said processed data received from said first node and sends the further processed data to another node in said network, wherein information about said processed data sent from said second node is provided to said first node and wherein said processing is also according to said information about said processed data sent from said second node.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said second node further processes said processed data received from said first node, wherein information about the further processed data is used to select said node from said second and third nodes.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein said information about said network comprises information observed by said first node.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein said information about said network comprises information observed by said second node and provided to said first node.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said information about said network further comprises information received from one or more nodes in communication with said second node.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein said data is encoded and wherein said information about said data is selected from the group consisting of:

information identifying the beginning and end of data in a data packet;

header information for a data packet;

truncation points for truncating said data;

information identifying the length of a data packet;

information identifying a transmission time of a data packet;

information identifying nominal presentation time for a data packet;

information quantifying for a data packet an amount of distortion predicted to occur should said data packet not be sent or received;

coding dependencies between a data packet and others of said data packets;

information identifying for a data packet how many others of said data packets are dependent on said data packet;

information identifying whether a data packet provides error resiliency;

information identifying whether a data packet provides redundancy;

information identifying a deadline for delivering a data packet;

information identifying a sequence number for a data packet;

prioritization information for a data packet;

spatial area features of said data;

color component features of said data;

resolution levels of said data;

quality levels of said data;

content of said data;

metadata describing said data;

security properties of said data; and

digital rights management properties of said data.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein said information about said network is selected from the group consisting of:

bandwidth available along a path in said network;

bottleneck link capacity along a path in said network;

data packet delivery rate;

data packet loss rate;

data packet received pattern;

data packet loss pattern;

information identifying which of said data packets were received at a node along said path;

information identifying which of said data packets did not arrive at a node along said path;

information quantifying time needed to traverse said path; and

information quantifying delays associated with said path.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein said data is encrypted.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said method further comprises:

using information about said second node and information about said third node to select a node from said second and third nodes, wherein said information about said second node and said information about said third node are selected from the group consisting of;

node resource usage and node resource availability; and

sending processed data from said first node to said node that is selected.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein said processing is selected from the group consisting of:

transcoding;

adding redundancy;

signal enhancement;

noise reduction;

resolution enhancement;

logo insertion;

splicing of streams;

VCR functionalities;

merging video and audio streams;

ad insertion;

personalization of streams;

removing objects from streams;

foreground/background segmentation of streams;

object recognition;

face recognition;

voice recognition;

speech recognition;

similarity detection;

signal analysis;

text analysis; and

media search operations.

19. A method of processing data, said method comprising:

accessing data at a first node in a network, said data comprising a plurality of data packets, wherein said network further comprises a second node and a communication path between said first node and said second node;

said first node using first information descriptive of conditions of said network to decide whether to process said data; and

with a decision to process, said first node processing said data according to said first information and also using second information associated with said data to determine which of said data is to be sent to said second node.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein said first node also uses third information to decide whether to process said data, said third information selected from the group consisting of:

node resource usage and node resource availability.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said method further comprises:

using said first information to select a node from said second and third nodes; and

sending processed data from said first node to said node that is selected.

22. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

using information about said second node and information about said third node to select a node from said second and third nodes, wherein said information about said second node and said information about said third node are selected from the group consisting of;

node resource usage and node resource availability; and

sending processed data from said first node to said node that is selected.

23. The method of claim 19 wherein said first information comprises information observed by said first node.

24. The method of claim 19 wherein said second node further processes said processed data received from said first node and sends the further processed data to another node in said network, wherein information about said processed data sent from said second node is provided to said first node and wherein said decision to process and said processing are also based on said information about said processed data sent from said second node.

25. In a network comprising a first node, a second node and a communication path between said first and second nodes, a system for processing data at said first node, said system comprising:

a processing element for processing data according to first information descriptive of conditions in said network and using second information about said data;

a storage element for storing said data and said second information; and

a streaming element for sending processed data to said second node.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said first information is used to select a node from said second and third nodes, wherein processed data is sent to said node that is selected.

27. The system of claim 25 wherein said network further comprises a third node and a communication path between said first node and said third node, wherein said second information is used to select a node from said second and third nodes, wherein processed data is sent to said node that is selected.

28. The system of claim 25 wherein said first information comprises information observed by said first node.

29. The system of claim 25 wherein said first information comprises information observed by said second node and provided to said first node.

30. The system of claim 25 wherein said second node further processes said processed data and sends the further processed data to another node in said network, wherein information about said processed data sent from said second node is provided to said system and wherein said processing is also according to said information about said processed data sent from said second node.