ENHANCED BLOCK-REQUEST STREAMING USING SCALABLE ENCODING

• US 20110096828A1
• Filed: 09/21/2010
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Chen, Ying, Stockhammer, Thomas, Luby, Michael G.
• Application Number:
  US12/887,480
• Publication Number:
  US 20110096828A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• 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 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23406 involving management of server-side video buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2401 Monitoring of the client buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25808 Management of client data terminal profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440227 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A block-request streaming system provides for improvements in the user experience and bandwidth efficiency of such systems, typically using an ingestion system that generates data in a form to be served by a conventional file server (HTTP, FTP, or the like), wherein the ingestion system intakes content and prepares it as files or data elements to be served by the file server. A client device can be adapted to take advantage of the ingestion process as well as including improvements that make for a better presentation independent of the ingestion process. The files or data elements are organized as blocks that are transmitted and decoded as a unit, and the system is configured to provide and consume scalable blocks such that the quality of the presentation increases as more of the block is downloaded. Encoding and decoding blocks with multiple independent scalability layers can be done as well.

Claims

1. In a communication system wherein a client device requests blocks of media data from a media ingestion system, a method comprising:

receiving, at the client device, a partial block of media data, wherein the media data is encoded using a scalable video encoding technique; and

constructing a media presentation from the partial block.

2. In a communication system wherein a client device requests media files from a media ingestion system, a method comprising:

providing, at the media ingestion system, multiple layers of media data within the media files, wherein a version of media content can be constructed from a subset of the multiple layers; and

providing metadata to enable construction of requests for the layers of media data.