METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE ADAPTATION OF MULTIMEDIA CONTENT IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

• US 20080195761A1
• Filed: 02/11/2008
• Published: 08/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Onmobile Global Limited
• Original Assignee: Dilithium Holdings, Inc. (Dilithium Networks, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jack, David, Kenrick, Brody, Jabri, Marwan A., Raad, Mohamad
• Granted Patent: US 8,560,729 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/250
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/10 using adaptive coding
• 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: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

An apparatus for adapting media content in one or more networks includes a controller module, one or more network interface modules, and one or more protocol interface modules coupled to the controller module. The apparatus also includes a script interpretation module coupled to the controller module and one or more media adaptation modules coupled to the controller module. The one or more media adaptation modules may support audio, video, or meta data. The apparatus further includes a management interface module coupled to the controller module. Media may be received at the apparatus as streaming media and be provided from the apparatus as a download or a progressive download. Additionally, media may be received at the apparatus as a download or progressive download and be provided from the apparatus as streaming media.

Claims

1. An apparatus for adapting media content in one or more networks, the apparatus comprising:

a controller module;

one or more network interface modules;

one or more protocol interface modules coupled to the controller module;

a script interpretation module coupled to the controller module;

one or more media adaptation modules coupled to the controller module; and

a management interface module coupled to the controller module.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein a media adaptation module of the one or more media adaptation modules is configured to transcode, transrate, transize, or filter media.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein a protocol interface module of the one or more protocol interface modules is adapted to handle a session of one or more of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), or Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP).

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein media is received at the apparatus as streaming media and is provided from the apparatus as a download or a progressive download or media is received at the apparatus as a download or progressive download and is provided from the apparatus as streaming media.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the one or more protocol interface modules are adapted to receive a first request from a client using a first protocol and a second protocol interface module of the one or more protocol interface modules is adapted to transmit a second request to a content server using a second protocol.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the first protocol is selected from the group consisting of HTTP, RTSP and SIP and the second protocol is selected from the group consisting of HTTP, RTSP and SIP.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the first protocol comprises HTTP and the second protocol comprises RTSP or the first protocol comprises RTSP and the second protocol comprises HTTP.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the script interpretation module is programmed to request data from a database to inform its decisions.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the script interpretation module is programmed to determine a media adaptation from a client request and a server response.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the script interpretation module is programmed to determine a target media attribute from a client request.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the script interpretation module is programmed to provide to a client delivered set of media adapted from a first set of media from a first source and a second set of media from a second source wherein one or more attributes of size, rate and codec are different between the delivered set of media, the first set of media and the second set of media.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the one or more media adaptation modules support one or more of audio, video, or meta data.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a caching module coupled to the one or more media adaptation modules.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a load balancing module coupled to the one or more media adaptation modules.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the load balancing module is configured to estimate a load prior to determination of one or more session characteristics and update the load after determining the one or more session characteristics.