Information distribution system, information processing apparatus and method, and information distribution apparatus and method

• US 20080244037A1
• Filed: 03/11/2008
• Published: 10/02/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Okuda, Hiroshi
• Application Number:
  US12/075,321
• Publication Number:
  US 20080244037A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47208 for requesting near-video-on-demand content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Disclosed herein is an information processing system, including: a plurality of information processing apparatus configured to issue a request for transmission of a content; and an information distribution apparatus configured to distribute the content to the information processing apparatus; each of the information processing apparatus having an inputting control section, and a transmission control section; the information distribution apparatus having a distribution reservation information registration section, and a scheduling section.

Claims

1. An information processing system, comprising:

a plurality of information processing apparatus configured to issue a request for transmission of a content; and

an information distribution apparatus configured to distribute the content to said information processing apparatus;

each of said information processing apparatus including

an inputting control section configured to control inputting of viewing starting scheduled time at which a user is to start enjoyment of the content whose transmission is requested, and

a transmission control section configured to control transmission of information indicative of the inputted viewing starting scheduled time to said information distribution apparatus;

said information distribution apparatus including

a distribution reservation information registration section configured to register distribution reservation information within which information indicative of viewing starting scheduled time transmitted from the plural information processing apparatus and content information representative of contents whose transmission is requested individually from the plural information processing apparatus are associated with each other, and

a scheduling section configured to calculate, based on the distribution reservation information, for each of the information processing apparatus, distribution starting scheduled time which is earlier than the viewing starting scheduled time and at which distribution of a content is to be started and distribution ending scheduled time at which the distribution of the content is to be ended thereby to carry out scheduling of distribution of the contents.

2. An information processing apparatus which issues a request for transmission of a content to an information distribution apparatus, comprising:

an inputting control section configured to control inputting of viewing starting scheduled time at which a user is to start enjoyment of the content whose transmission is requested; and

a transmission control section configured to control transmission of information indicative of the inputted viewing starting scheduled time to the information distribution apparatus.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

a reception control section configured to control reception of a scheduling completion notification transmitted from the information distribution apparatus and indicating that distribution of the content is scheduled as a result of calculation of distribution starting scheduled time which is earlier than the viewing starting scheduled time and at which distribution of the content is to be started and distribution ending scheduled time at which the distribution of the content is to be ended; and

a power supply control section configured to control the power supply based on the distribution starting scheduled time included in the scheduling completion notification so that the power supply is turned on by the distribution starting scheduled time.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said reception control section controls reception of the content whose transmission is requested and whose distribution is scheduled by the information distribution apparatus.

5. An information processing method for an information processing apparatus which issues a request for transmission of a content to an information distribution apparatus, comprising the steps of:

controlling inputting of viewing starting scheduled time at which a user is to start enjoyment of the content whose transmission is requested; and

controlling transmission of information indicative of the inputted viewing starting scheduled time to the information distribution apparatus.

6. An information distribution apparatus which distributes a content to an information processing apparatus, comprising:

a distribution reservation information registration section configured to register distribution reservation information wherein information transmitted from a plurality of information processing apparatus and indicative of viewing starting scheduled time at which a user of each of the information processing apparatus is to start enjoyment of a content whose transmission is requested from the information processing apparatus and content information transmitted from each of the plural information processing apparatus and indicative of the content whose transmission is requested from the information processing apparatus are associated with each other; and

a scheduling section configured to calculate, based on the distribution reservation information, for each of the information processing apparatus, distribution starting scheduled time which is earlier than the viewing starting scheduled time and at which distribution of a content is to be started and distribution ending scheduled time at which the distribution of the content is to be ended thereby to carry out scheduling of distribution of the contents.

7. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said distribution reservation information registration section registers the distribution reservation information wherein information indicative of viewing starting scheduled time transmitted from the plural information processing apparatus and information indicative of the amount of data of the contents whose transmission is requested individually from the plural information processing apparatus;

and

said scheduling section calculates, for each of the information processing apparatus, the distribution starting scheduled time and the distribution ending scheduled time from the viewing starting scheduled time, the data amount of the content, and a distribution capacity representative of the amount of data which can be distributed to the information processing apparatus thereby to carry out the scheduling of distribution of the contents.

8. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a viewing reservation settable time calculation section configured to calculate, for each of the information processing apparatus, from the present point of time and a distribution time period requisite to distribute the content whose transmission is requested by the user and obtained from the amount of data of the content and a distribution capacity representative of the amount of data which can be distributed to the information processing apparatus, viewing scheduled settable time which is time which is most proximate to the viewing starting scheduled time of the content whose transmission is requested by the user and which is settable as the viewing starting scheduled time; and

a validity decision section configured to compare the viewing reservation settable time and the viewing starting scheduled time with each other to decide whether or not the request for transmission of the content from the information processing apparatus is valid.

9. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said validity decision section decides whether or not the request for transmission of the content is valid based on information representative of whether credit settlement of a credit card owned by the user is permissible or information representative of a free capacity of a recording medium of the information processing apparatus.

10. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a distribution schedule information registration section configured to register distribution schedule information within which the content information of the contents whose transmission is requested by the users and the distribution starting scheduled time and the distribution ending scheduled time are associated with each other;

said scheduling section carrying out the scheduling such that, where the amount of data to be distributed to the information processing apparatus has some margin, distribution of that one of the contents with regard to which the distribution starting scheduled time of the distribution schedule information is later than the present point of time but is nearest to the present point of time is started at the present point of time of the content, represented by the content information, in the distribution schedule information.

11. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the content information includes charging information representative of an amount of money to be claimed to the user in response to distribution of the content and information indicative of a card number representative of the number of a credit card owned by the user and a term of validity of the credit card and used to carry out credit settlement of the amount of money indicated by the charging information;

said information distribution apparatus further comprising a charging processing section configured to carry out a charging process based on the charging information and the information indicative of the card number representative of the number of the credit card and the term of validity of the credit card.

12. The information distribution apparatus according to claim 11, wherein said charging processing section changes the amount of money in response to the length of an interval of time between reservation time at which the information representative of the viewing starting scheduled time is transmitted from the information processing apparatus and the viewing starting scheduled time to carry out the charging process.

13. An information distribution method for an information distribution apparatus which distributes a content to an information processing apparatus, comprising the steps of:

registering distribution reservation information wherein information transmitted from a plurality of information processing apparatus and indicative of viewing starting scheduled time at which a user of each of the information processing apparatus is to start enjoyment of a content whose transmission is requested from the information processing apparatus and content information transmitted from each of the plural information processing apparatus and indicative of the content whose transmission is requested from the information processing apparatus are associated with each other; and

calculating, based on the distribution reservation information, for each of the information processing apparatus, distribution starting scheduled time which is earlier than the viewing starting scheduled time and at which distribution of a content is to be started and distribution ending scheduled time at which the distribution of the content is to be ended thereby to carry out scheduling of distribution of the contents.