PEER-TO-PEER AIDED LIVE VIDEO SHARING SYSTEM

• US 20080112315A1
• Filed: 11/10/2006
• Published: 05/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tang, Jian, Li, Jiang, Lou, Jian-Guang, Cai, Hua, Hu, Yusuo, Luo, Chong
• Granted Patent: US 7,733,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1072 Discovery involving ranked list compilation of candidate peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1085 involving dynamic management of active down- or uploading connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21 Server components or server architectures
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23 Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• 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 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Video data from an upload client is received at a hosting node. A request from a download client is received at a bootstrapping node to receive the video data. The download client to receive the video data directly from the hosting node when the hosting node is below a threshold, wherein the threshold is based at least in part on the maximum number of download clients the hosting node can stream to simultaneously. The download client to receive the video data from peers in a peer-to-peer overlay when the hosting node above the threshold.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving video data from an upload client at a hosting node;

receiving a request from a download client at a bootstrapping node to receive the video data;

informing the download client, by the bootstrapping node, to receive the video data directly from the hosting node when the hosting node is below a threshold, wherein the threshold is based at least in part on the maximum number of download clients the hosting node can stream to simultaneously; and

informing the download client, by the bootstrapping node, to receive the video data from peers of the download client in a peer-to-peer overlay when the hosting node is above the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the video data includes a live video stream captured by the upload client, wherein the download client receives the live video stream.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request at the bootstrapping node from the upload client for an available hosting node; and

sending, by the bootstrapping node, a hosting node address for the hosting node to the upload client in response to the request.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an upload request from the upload client at the hosting node to upload the video data; and

sending an acknowledgement to the upload client by the hosting node in response to the upload request.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving video session information associated with the video data from the hosting node at the bootstrapping node after the hosting node has started receiving the video data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending video session information associated with the video data to a database server by the bootstrapping node.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising discovering the peers of the peer-to-peer overlay by the download client.

8. One or more computer readable media including computer readable instructions that, when executed, perform the method of claim 1.

9. A method, comprising:

receiving a prefetch request for a particular packet of a video stream at a peer from one or more partners of the peer, wherein the partners is a subset of peers of a peer-to-peer overlay;

receiving a packet of the video stream at the peer;

pushing the packet, by the peer, to any partner whose prefetch request matches the packet; and

updating a local copy of the partner'"'"'s buffer map at the peer after pushing the packet, wherein the buffer map indicates packets of the video stream available in a partner'"'"'s packet queue.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising sending prefetch requests of the peer to the partners in the peer-to-peer overlay.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising pulling a needed packet from a partner, by the peer, when a pull condition is triggered.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

sending a join request to a bootstrapping node to join the peer-to-peer overlay by the peer;

receiving peer information regarding one or more peers of the peer-to-peer overlay from the bootstrapping node; and

joining the peer-to-peer overlay by the peer.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising updating the set of peers that are partners in response to a loss of communication with a partner.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising updating the set of peers that are partners in response to a peer entering or leaving the peer-to-peer overlay.

15. One or more computer readable media including computer readable instructions that, when executed, perform the method of claim 9.

16. A system, comprising:

a hosting node to receive a video from an upload client and to stream the video to one or more download clients of a peer-to-peer overlay; and

a bootstrapping node communicatively coupled to the hosting node, wherein the bootstrapping node to inform a download client to receive the video directly from the hosting node when the hosting node is below a threshold, wherein the threshold is based at least in part on the maximum number of download clients the hosting node can stream to simultaneously, wherein the bootstrapping node to inform a download client to receive the video from one or more download clients in the peer-to-peer overlay when the hosting node has exceeded the threshold.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the video includes a live video stream captured by the upload client, wherein the one or more download clients receive the live video stream.

18. The system of claim 16, further comprising a second hosting node communicatively coupled to the bootstrapping node, the second hosting node to receive a second video from a second upload client and to stream the second video to one or more download clients of a second peer-to-peer overlay.

19. The system of claim 16, further comprising a database server communicatively coupled to the bootstrapping server, the database server to store video information associated with each video available on the system.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising a web server communicatively coupled to the database server, the web server to provide access to viewers to video information stored on the database server.