APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REPRESENTING A SEQUENCE OF CONTENT AS PROJECTIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTING THE SEQUENCE AT FULL OR LOWER QUALITY

• US 20100211981A1
• Filed: 08/05/2008
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hayim Shaul
• Original Assignee: Hayim Shaul
• Inventors: Shaul, Hayim
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,955 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/87
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/30 Compression speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N; Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/94 Vector quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4143 embedded in a Personal Computer [PC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6583 Acknowledgement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection

Abstract

A content presentation system comprising content playing apparatus and content providing apparatus operative to receive an array of digitally represented numbers, representing content as P points in D-dimensional space, to generate therefrom a plurality of projections on at least one sub-space of a vector space comprising a span of at least one D-dimensional vector, and to provide the plurality of projections to the content playing apparatus, the content playing apparatus being operative to reconstruct the array of digitally represented numbers from the plurality of projections and to expose human users to content accordingly.

Claims

1. A method for encoding a sequence of M raw digital entertainment content bits comprising:

grouping said M raw digital entertainment content bits into P points, by partitioning the bits into tuples of L bits and taking a number whose binary representation equals the (i×

D+j)-th L tuple to be the j-th coordinate of the i-th point (1<

=i<

=P), (1<

=D), each point being D-dimensional, where D>

1, each dimension having 2 to the power of L levels, such that P×

D×

L=M; and

generating at least a portion of a sequence of E data elements ELEMENT₁, . . . ELEMENT_E, wherein each data element ELEMENT_k(1<

k<

=E) comprises a d_k-dimensional subspace s_k of D-dimensional space that was chosen at random and a projection of substantially all of said P points onto subspace s_k, wherein d₁+. . . +d_F>

D, and wherein ELEMENT_k'"'"'s projection comprises P sets of d_k L-tuples of bits defining P points, PNTk,1 , PNTk,2 , PNTk,p, respectively, in subspace s_k.

2. A method according to claim 1 and also comprising transmitting at least a portion of said sequence of E data elements to a client over an information network.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein said transmitting comprises transmitting only a client-defined subsequence of said sequence of E data elements.

4. A method according to claim 2 wherein at least one of said subspaces s_k is transmitted by specifying the coordinates of the vectors that span subspace s_k.

5. A method according to claim 2 wherein at least one of said subspaces s_k is transmitted by specifying an index in a list of previously predefined subspaces.

6. A method according to claim 2 wherein at least one of said subspaces s_k is transmitted by specifying a number, that is used to generate the vectors that span subspace s_k.

7. A method according to claim 6 wherein at least one of said subspaces s_k is transmitted using a predefined function whose output is a subspace that depends on an input number.

8. A method according to claim 1 wherein said subspaces s_k (k=1, . . . E) are linearly independent, wherein dimensions d₁, . . . d_E of the subspaces s₁, . . . s_E;

respectively are characterized in that d₁+. . . d_E=D.

9. A method according to claim 1 wherein the span of said subspaces s_k (k=1, . . . E) is a space of dimension D, wherein the dimensions d₁, . . . d_E of the subspaces s₁, . . . s_E respectively are characterized in that d₁+. . . +d_E>

D.

10. A method according to claim 1 wherein the span of said subspaces s_k (k=1, . . . E) is a space of dimension lower than D.

11. A method according to claim 1 and also comprising:

providing raw digital entertainment content comprising a multiplicity of pixels; and

providing a sequence of M raw digital entertainment content bits selected to represent said multiplicity of pixels.

12. A method according to claim 1 and also comprising:

providing raw digital entertainment content comprising a multiplicity of samples of a sound wave; and

providing a sequence of M raw digital entertainment content bits selected to represent said multiplicity of samples of a sound wave.

16. A method according to claim 11 wherein dim(span(s1,s2, . . . se))×

P×

L=M.

17. A method according to claim 16 wherein S1,S2, . . . Se are linearly independent, such that dim(span(s1,s2, . . . se))=d1+d2+. . . +de.

18. A method according to claim 7 where the function is a pseudo-random generator.

42. A method according to claim 1 wherein said grouping comprises partitioning the bits into tuples of L bits and taking the number whose binary representation is as the (ixD+j)-th tuple to be the j-th coordinate of the i-th point (1<

=i<

=P), (1<

=j<

=D).

43. A method according to claim 4 wherein said projections are pseudo-randomly selected from among a universe of possible projections.

45. A method according to claim 1 wherein the M bits are permuted by a predefined permutation before being grouped.

46. A method according to claim 1 wherein the M bits are generated by M₁ entertainment bits and M₂ predefined bits, such that M₁+M₂=M.

47. A method according to claim 1 wherein different coordinates have different number of levels, thus use different number of bits in their representation.

13. A content presentation system comprising:

content playing apparatus; and

content providing apparatus operative to receive an array of digitally represented numbers, representing content as P points in D-dimensional space, to generate therefrom a plurality of projections on at least one sub-space of a vector space comprising a span of at least one D-dimensional vector, and to provide said plurality of projections to the content playing apparatus,

said content playing apparatus being operative to reconstruct said array of digitally represented numbers from said plurality of projections and to expose human users to content accordingly.

27. A system according to claim 13 wherein said array is received by said content providing apparatus as a real time stream and said content playing apparatus is operative in real time to reconstruct said array of digitally represented numbers from said plurality of projections and to generate entertainment accordingly.

28. A system according to claim 13 wherein the content playing apparatus at least partly determines how many projections are included in said plurality of projections.

29. A system according to claim 13 wherein a population of entertainment content providing devices, including said entertainment content providing apparatus, is served, thereby to define a work load, and wherein the work load at least partly determines how many projections are included in said plurality of projections.

30. A system according to claim 13 wherein said content providing apparatus is entitled to a known quality of service, and wherein said quality of service at least partly determines how many projections are included in said plurality of projections.

31. A system according to claim 30 wherein said known quality of service is stored on a smart card.

32. A system according to claim 30 wherein said content providing apparatus comprises a voice over IP device.

33. A system according to claim 13 wherein said plurality of projections includes more than enough data to reconstruct said array of digitally represented numbers such that even if said plurality of projections is incompletely received by said content playing apparatus, said array of digitally represented numbers can at least usually be reconstructed.

34. A system according to claim 29 wherein said work load is operationalized as at least one bandwidth constraint.

35. A system according to claim 34 wherein said population of entertainment content providing devices comprise a population of video-on-demand clients and said content providing apparatus comprises a video-on-demand server.

36. A system according to claim 34 wherein said population of entertainment content providing devices comprises a population of televisions and said content providing apparatus comprises a television streaming server.

37. A system according to claim 13 wherein said content providing apparatus comprises a voice over IP device and the content comprises voice infoimation, the device being characterized in that if a packet of content is dropped, the device does not play silence and instead reduces the quality of the voice played.

38. A system according to claim 13 wherein said content providing apparatus comprises a plurality of video-streaming devices serving as simultaneous sources for video content.

40. A system according to claim 13 wherein said content providing apparatus includes a terminating function operative, upon a termination signal received from the content playing apparatus, to terminate generation of projections from said array of digitally represented numbers.

41. A system according to claim 13 wherein said content playing apparatus comprises a audio-visual device for playing movies.

14. A method for retrieving a sequence of P×

D×

L=M raw digital entertainment content bits from a received sequence of 1<

e<

=E data elements, each data element comprising P sets of d_k L-tuples of bits,

each data element ELEMENT_k (1<

=k<

=e) comprising a projection of substantially all of P points defined in a coordinate system having an origin, onto a d_k-dimensional subspace s_k of D-dimensional space, thereby to define subspaces defining a span,

wherein the subspaces are characterized in that the dim(span(S1, . . . , Sk))<

=M/(P×

L),

the method comprising;

if dim(S1)+. . . +dim(Se)>

M/(P×

L) discarding data elements at random until dim(S1)+. . . +dim(Se)=M/(P×

L), and then continuing as in the case where dim(span(S1, . . . Se))=M/(P×

L);

repeating for p=1, . . . P;

a. retrieving a p'"'"'th point comprising D L-tuples of bits, wherein retrieving the p'"'"'th point comprises, for each data element ELEMENT_h (1<

=h<

=e) in said sequence of e data elements, taking the intersection of all O_p,1, O_p,2, . . . , O_p,e where O_p,h (1<

=p<

=P, 1<

=h<

=e) is a translated subspace orthogonal to s_h that contains the point PNTh,p, the dimension of the subspace being D−

d_h, the intersection of all of said translated subspaces orthogonal to s_h defining an intersection translated subspace comprising a translated subspace of dimension D-dim(span(s1,s2, . . . , s[k]e)); and

b. choosing a D-dimensional point q_p within said intersection translated subspace, wherein each dimension of the D-dimensional point is represented at a 2^L-level resolution, such that the point is defined by D L-tuples of bits; and

decoding the P D-dimensional points into M raw digital entertainment bits by setting the (ixD+j)-th L-tuple of bits to hold the L-bit binary representation of the j-th coordinate of the i-th point (1<

=j<

=D) (1<

=i<

=P), thereby obtaining P×

D×

L bits

wherein, if dim(span(S1, . . . , Se)) =M/(P×

L), the intersection of all of said translated subspaces orthogonal to s_h defines a single point q_p and said M raw digital entertainment bits are identical to the bits that were encoded.

15. A method according to claim 14 wherein span(s1, . . . se)=D such that all subspaces s_k (1<

=k<

=E) intersect at a single D-dimensional point, each dimension having L levels, said point being the exact encoding of M.

44. A method according to claim 14 wherein q_p is chosen so as to minimize its Euclidian distance from the origin.

48. A method according to claim 14 wherein M bits are permuted by a predefined permutation after decoding them.

19. A system for digitizing a playable sequence of content items, the method comprising:

a whole-sequence representing digital element generator computing at least a portion of a set of digital data elements, said set being characterized in that it is possible to reconstruct an approximation of the playable sequence from at least some subsets of said set of digital data elements and wherein each said approximation has a quality, and wherein the quality of each said approximation depends on the size of the subset from which said approximation is reconstructed.

20. A system according to claim 19 wherein the set is characterized in that it is possible to reconstruct the playable sequence from said set of digital data elements.

21. A system according to claim 19 wherein said set of digital data elements comprises a set of projections of an n-dimensional vector representation of said sequence of content items, onto a corresponding set of vectors.

22. A system according to claim 19 wherein said set of digital data elements comprises a set of projections of an n-dimensional vector representation of said sequence of content items, onto a corresponding set of sub-spaces.

23. A system according to claim 21 wherein said set of vectors is randomly selected.

24. A system according to claim 22 wherein said set of sub-spaces is randomly selected.

25. A system according to claim 19 wherein said digital element generator comprises a digitizer operative to generate an array of numbers representing said playable sequence and said data elements comprise respective projections of said array of numbers onto respective vectors.

26. A system according to claim 21 wherein each projection is computed over a Galois field GF(2 exp n).

39. An entertainment system comprising:

entertainment content storing apparatus; and

content providing apparatus operative to receive an array of digitally represented numbers, representing entertainment content having a quality parameter as P points in D-dimensional space, to generate therefrom a plurality of projections on at least one sub-space of a vector space comprising a span of at least one D-dimensional vector, and to store said plurality of projections on the entertainment content storing apparatus, thereby to ensure that local damage to said entertainment content storing apparatus does not eradicate any portion of said entertainment content and instead generally uniformly reduces the quality parameter of all portions of said entertainment content.