Live video broadcasting on distributed networks

• US 20080281913A1
• Filed: 07/31/2007
• Published: 11/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NBC Universal Media LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Vudu Incorporated (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Ganesan, Prasanna, Shankar, Sumankar
• Granted Patent: US 8,904,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/108 characterised by resources being split in blocks or fragments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/222 Secondary servers, e.g. proxy server, cable television Head-end provisioning of proxy services in data packet switching networks H04L67/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17354 in an intermediate station common to a plurality of user terminals

Abstract

The techniques related to providing a live program over the Internet are described. According to one aspect of the techniques, a data stream representing a live program is preprocessed to produce a plurality of substreams, each of the substreams comprising decimated samples of the data stream. The number of substreams is relatively large so that the bandwidth requirement for delivering one of the substreams is relatively low. With a group of seeding boxes receiving the substreams, a group of boxes in services are designated to receive the substreams from the seeding boxes, each of these boxes including the seeding boxes is able to support multiple outbound streams (e.g., greater than 2) so that there are enough data suppliers to service the ordering boxes or colonize more boxes to become the data suppliers. As a result, a live program can be timely serviced by peer boxes, significantly reducing the computation and bandwidth burdens on a server(s).

Claims

1. A method for distributing a live program over a distributed network, the method comprising:

preprocessing a data stream representing the live program into a plurality of substreams, each of the substreams comprising decimated samples of the data stream, wherein the data stream is continuously coming till the live program ends;

identifying boxes in service that are idle;

selecting a set of seeding boxes from the idle boxes to receive the substreams; and

causing the seeding boxes to propagate the substreams as being received to other of the idle boxes so that there are a sufficient number of suppliers to provide the substreams to ordering boxes.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein there are N substreams, N is a finite integer number, and further comprising designating N of the suppliers, each supplying one of the N substreams to a box ordering the live program.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the N substreams are being streamed into the ordering box nearly simultaneously so that data blocks in each of the N substreams are multiplexed to recover the data stream for playback.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the ordering box becomes a candidate to supply one or more of the N substreams to another ordering box.

5. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising designating another supplier to continue supplying a corresponding one of the substreams should one of the N suppliers fail to maintain a required transmission speed.

6. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein each of the N suppliers provides one of the substreams to one or more ordering boxes.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said preprocessing a data stream comprises:

determining how many substreams are needed to service the live program; and

generating continuously the substreams by sampling data blocks in a decimated fashion from the data stream being received, wherein the data blocks in the data stream are consecutive while the data blocks in each of the substreams are interleaved.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein said identifying boxes in service that are idle comprises:

determining a status of all boxes in service, and classifying those boxes that have sufficient unused computation power and bandwidths as the idle boxes; and

detecting whether each of the idle boxes has a sufficient downloading bandwidth to receive one of the substreams and an uploading bandwidth to provide one of the substreams to more than two ordering boxes.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein there are N substreams, said selecting a set of seeding boxes from the idle boxes to receive the substreams comprises selecting N seeding boxes, each to receive one of the N substreams directly from a server configured to provide the N substreams.

10. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein said causing the seeding boxes to propagate the substreams as being received to other of the idle boxes comprises causing the seeding boxes to distribute the substreams to all of the idle boxes with a minimum delay in time.

11. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein said causing the seeding boxes to propagate the substreams as being received to other of the idle boxes comprises:

identifying a next set of boxes in the idle boxes to receive the substreams from the seeding boxes, where each of the seeding boxes is forwarding a corresponding one of the substreams to one or more boxes in the next set of boxes.

12. A system for distributing a live program over a distributed network, the system comprising:

a server configured to generate N substreams that are created from a data stream representing the live program into, each of the N substreams comprising decimated samples of the data stream, wherein the data stream is continuously coming till the live program ends, and N is a finite integer;

a plurality of boxes in service that are idle, wherein a set of seeding boxes from the idle boxes is selected to receive the substreams from the server and caused to propagate the N substreams as being received to other of the idle boxes; and

a plurality of ordering boxes to order the live program, each of the ordering boxes receiving the N substreams from N of the idle boxes, wherein each of the N of the idle boxes is capable of servicing one or more ordering boxes.

13. The system as recited in claim 12, wherein the N substreams are being streamed into the ordering box nearly simultaneously so that data blocks in each of the N substreams are multiplexed to recover the data stream for playback.

14. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein the each of the ordering boxes becomes a candidate to supply one or more of the N substreams to another ordering box.

15. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein each of the idle boxes has a sufficient downloading bandwidth to receive one of the N substreams and an uploading bandwidth to provide a corresponding one of the N substreams to more than two ordering boxes.

16. The system as recited in claim 13, wherein each of the idle boxes has a sufficient downloading bandwidth to receive one of the N substreams and an uploading bandwidth to support multiple streams of one of the N substreams.

17. The system as recited in claim 12, wherein the substreams are continuously produced by sampling data blocks in a decimated fashion from the data stream being received, wherein the data blocks in the data stream are consecutive while the data blocks in each of the substreams are interleaved.

18. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein the substreams are streamed in an ordering boxes nearly simultaneously so that the data blocks in the substreams are multiplexed to recove the data stream for playback.

19. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein the N substreams are being relayed from the seeding boxes to other of the idle boxes with a minimum delay in time.

20. The system as recited in claim 19, wherein each of the ordering boxes becomes a supplier to provide one or more of the substreams to other boxes in service.