METHOD FOR IMPROVING MULTIMEDIA-BROADCASTING QUALITY

• US 20080005637A1
• Filed: 11/02/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Awind, Inc (Barco NV)
• Original Assignee: Awind, Inc (Barco NV)
• Inventors: Cheng, Po-Wen, Chen, Da-Fei, Wang, Chien-Hsing, CHANG, Kuo-Lung
• Application Number:
  US11/555,733
• Publication Number:
  US 20080005637A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/748
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1685 the supervisory signal being transmitted in response to a specific request, e.g. to a polling signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0093 Point-to-multipoint

Abstract

A method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality comprises the steps of: assigning one of receivers as an acknowledger; broadcasting in order the plural information blocks from a sender to the receivers; the acknowledger reporting an acknowledge (ACK) message to the sender at every time that the acknowledger receives one information block; re-broadcasting the information block to the receivers if the sender does not receive the respective ACK message; and repeating broadcasting till all the information blocks are successfully transmitted to the receivers.

Claims

1. A method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality, comprising the steps of:

a. dividing a multimedia information into a predetermined number (say, N) of information blocks;

b. assigning one of plural receivers as an acknowledger;

c. broadcasting an N-th information block from a sender to the plural receivers;

d. determining if or not the acknowledger receives the N-th information block;

e. reporting an acknowledge (ACK) message to the sender if positive, and repeating step (c) if negative;

f. determining if the N-th information block is the last information block of the multimedia information; and

g. terminating transmission of the information blocks if positive, and repeating step (c) after using N+1 to replace the N if negative.

2. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein said step (e) further includes the steps of:

e1. marking the N-th information as a missed block if any of the receivers does not receive the N-th information block, and performing the following step otherwise;

e2. noticing the sender to define the receiver as a far peer either if an accumulated number of the missed blocks at the receiver is larger than a number “

i”

or if a counting number of repeating missed blocks is larger than a number “

j”

, and performing the following step otherwise; and

e3. reassigning another one of the receivers as a new acknowledger if a percentage of a number of the far peers to that of the receivers is larger than M, and performing the following step otherwise.

3. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein said sender transmits the information block to the receivers via the UDP.

4. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein said acknowledger transmits the ACK message to the sender via the TCP.

5. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein a time for the receiver to process the N-th information block in said step (d) is defined as a time duration Tb, and wherein the method deems that all the receivers and the acknowledger have not received the N-th information if the sender hasn'"'"'t receive the ACK message in a time duration 2 Tb.

6. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein said receiver discards a repeated N-th information block if the receiver has received the N-th information block.

7. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 2, wherein, in said step (e3), said sender selects the receiver from the plural far peers as the acknowledger by determining which receiver missed the most the information blocks.

8. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 2, wherein, in said step (e3), said sender selects the receiver from the plural far peers as the acknowledger by determining which receiver missed the least the information blocks.

9. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 1, wherein said receiver detects automatically a signal quality of a current WLAN channel, and wherein the signal quality is forwarded to the sender for deciding if a switch in the WLAN channel is required.

10. A method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality, comprising the steps of:

a. dividing a multimedia information into a predetermined number (say, N) of information blocks;

b. assigning one of plural receivers as an acknowledger;

c. broadcasting an N-th information block from a sender to the plural receivers;

d. determining if or not the acknowledger receives the N-th information block;

e. reporting an acknowledge (ACK) message to the sender if positive, and repeating step (c) if negative;

f. determining if any of the receivers have received the N-th information block;

g. marking the N-th information as a missed block if negative, and performing the following step otherwise;

h. determining either if an accumulated number of the missed blocks at the receiver is larger than a number “

i”

or if a counting number of repeating missed blocks is larger than a number “

j”

;

i. noticing the sender to define the receiver as a far peer if positive, and performing the following step otherwise;

j. determining if a percentage of a number of the far peers to that of the receivers is larger than M;

k. reassigning another one of the receivers as a new acknowledger, and performing the following step otherwise;

l. determining if the N-th information block is the last information block of the multimedia information; and

m. terminating transmission of the information blocks if positive, and repeating step (c) after using N+1 to replace the N if negative.

11. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein said sender transmits the information block to the receivers via the UDP.

12. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein said acknowledger transmits the ACK message to the sender via the TCP.

13. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein a time for the receiver to process the N-th information block in said step (d) is defined as a time duration Tb, and wherein the method deems that all the receivers and the acknowledger have not received the N-th information if the sender hasn'"'"'t receive the ACK message in a time duration 2 Tb.

14. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein said receiver discards a repeated N-th information block if the receiver has received the N-th information block.

15. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein, in said step (f), said sender selects the receiver from the plural far peers as the acknowledger by determining which receiver missed the most the information blocks.

16. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein, in said step (f), said sender selects the receiver from the plural far peers as the acknowledger by determining which receiver missed the least the information blocks.

17. The method for improving multimedia-broadcasting quality according to claim 10, wherein said receiver detects automatically a signal quality of a current WLAN channel, and wherein the signal quality is forwarded to the sender for deciding if a switch in the WLAN channel is required.