METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRIGGERING INGESTION OF REMOTE CONTENT BY A STREAMING SERVER USING UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR FOLDER MAPPING

• US 20100030908A1
• Filed: 08/01/2008
• Published: 02/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Masimo Corporation
• Original Assignee: Vantrix Corporation
• Inventors: COURTEMANCHE, Marc, Cote, Sebastien
• Granted Patent: US 10,007,668 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]

Abstract

A method and system to trigger ingestion of remote content or playlists by a streaming server using URL folder mapping is disclosed. The streaming server maintains a URL Map having entries that map a URL folder referenced in the streaming URL to a content server folder located on the content server. This folder level mapping enables maintaining a many-to-many relationship between multiple content identified at the streaming server and their corresponding content located at the content server.

Claims

1. A method for mapping a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) folder to a content folder located in a content server, the method comprising:

receiving a request for content at a streaming server the request including a streaming URL comprising a folder portion and a path portion;

parsing the request to extract the streaming URL;

analyzing the streaming URL to identify the folder portion;

querying a configuration file to verify whether a mapping between the folder portion and a content folder is present in the configuration file, the content folder having an identifier; and

constructing an HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) content URL by concatenating the content folder identifier and the path portion to form the HTTP content URL.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising

sending an HTTP request to the content server using the HTTP content URL;

receiving the requested content at the streaming server; and

streaming the received content to a streaming client device.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the received content is a media file or a playlist of a plurality of media files.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising processing the playlist to identify individual Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of each of the plurality of media files.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for content is based on a protocol selected from the group consisting of:

Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Microsoft Media Services (MMS).

20. A computer readable medium, comprising a computer code instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of the method of claim 1.

6. A method for dynamic ingestion of content located in a content server by a streaming server, the method comprising:

maintaining a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Map at the streaming server;

adding a new content in a content folder at the content server; and

downloading the new content by the streaming server upon receiving from a streaming client a request for content having a new streaming URL identifying the new content wherein the downloading is performed based on the URL Map having an entry mapping a URL folder portion of the new streaming URL to a mapping URL identifying the content folder.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of downloading comprises the steps of:

constructing an HTTP content URL from the mapping URL and a path portion of the new streaming URL to identify the new content in the content server;

sending an HTTP request for content to the content server using the HTTP content URL; and

receiving the new content from the content server.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising streaming the new content to the streaming client device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the streaming comprises streaming using a protocol selected from the group consisting of:

Real-time Transport protocol (RTP) and Advanced Streaming Format (ASF)

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the request for content is based on a protocol selected from the group consisting of:

Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Microsoft Media Services (MMS).

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising processing the new content to determine whether the new content is a media file or a playlist of a plurality of media files.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the processing comprises further processing the playlist to identify an individual Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of each of the plurality of media files.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of downloading further comprises querying the URL Map to determine whether the URL Map includes the URL folder of the new streaming URL, and retrieving the Mapping URL identifying the content folder if the URL folder of the new streaming URL is included in the URL Map.

21. A computer readable medium, comprising a computer code instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of the method of claim 6.

14. A system having a processor and a computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon for streaming content to a streaming client device, the system comprising:

a controller module for receiving a request for content according to a streaming protocol the request for content including a streaming URL having a URL folder portion and a path portion;

a configuration file for maintaining a URL Map having entries for mapping URL folders to content folders located in a content server;

an analysis module for identifying the URL folder portion and the path portion of the streaming URL and querying the configuration file to determine whether the URL folder is included in the URL Map; and

a matching module for retrieving a Mapping URL matching the URL folder in the URL Map.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

an HTTP content URL constructor module for constructing an HTTP content URL from the mapping URL and the path portion to identify the requested content in the content server;

an HTTP download module for sending an HTTP request to the content server using the HTTP content URL and for receiving the requested content; and

a media processing module for streaming the requested content to the streaming client device.

16. The system of claim 14 further comprising a file characterization module for determining whether the requested content is a media file or a playlist of a plurality of media files.

17. The System of claim, 16 further comprising a playlist processing module for processing the playlist to identify a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of each of the plurality of media files included in the playlist.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the controller module comprises means for processing requests for content based on a protocol selected from the group consisting of:

Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) and Microsoft Media Services (MMS).

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the processing module further comprises means for streaming the requested content according to a protocol selected from the group consisting of:

Real-time Transport protocol (RTP) and Advanced Streaming Format (ASF).