REAL-TIME OR NEAR REAL-TIME STREAMING

• US 20110246621A1
• Filed: 04/01/2011
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: May, William JR., Pantos, Roger
• Granted Patent: US 9,729,830 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• 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 21/4586 Content update operation triggered locally, e.g. by comparing the version of software modules in a DVB carousel to the version stored locally deployment, distribution, installation, update of software G06F8/65; error detection or correction of the data by redundancy during software upgrading G06F11/1433; arrangements for updating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/25
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/654 Transmission by server directed to the client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6581 Reference data, e.g. a movie identifier for ordering a movie or a product identifier in a home shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A near real time content streaming system can use a playlist file, in one embodiment, that includes an indicator of the type of content represented by the playlist file. The type can be indicated by a parameter, such as Video on Demand (VOD) or live, or event, that specifies the type of playlist file, and a client device can process the playlist file based upon the type of playlist file indicated by the parameter. For example, the client device, after determining the type of playlist from a playlist file can make efficiency optimizations when processing the playlist file. For example, the client, knowing the playlist file is a VOD playlist, can save the previously used variant playlist when switching to a new variant playlist rather than discarding the previously used variant playlist.

Claims

1. A machine readable, tangible, non-transitory storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed, cause a data processing system to perform a method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a playlist file;

receiving, at the client device in response to the request, the playlist file from a server device, the playlist file having Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) which indicate a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files;

determining whether the playlist file has a type parameter which indicates a type of playlist;

processing the playlist in accordance with the type parameter when the playlist file has the type parameter.

2. The medium as in claim 1 wherein the type parameter is one of:

(a) Video on Demand (VOD);

(b) live;

or (c) event, and wherein a VOD playlist does not change and wherein an event has a specified and fixed beginning time for an event playlist and wherein the playlist is received through a network using a non-streaming transfer protocol and wherein the method further comprises;

requesting one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file; and

receiving the one or more requested media files through the network using the non-streaming transfer protocol.

3. The medium as in claim 2 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured NOT to update the playlist and the client device is configured to save the playlist for future use when switching to a variant playlist for content referred to by the playlist.

4. The medium as in claim 3 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured to generate an error signal when the playlist lacks an ENDLIST tag.

5. The medium as in claim 2 wherein when the type parameter is live, the client device is configured to request an updated playlist.

6. The medium as in claim 2 wherein when the type parameter is event, the client device is configured to either (a) load only a portion of an updated playlist or (b) parse only a portion of the updated playlist.

7. The medium as in claim 2 wherein the method further comprises generating an audio or video or an audio/video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file and wherein the non-streaming transfer protocol comprises a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) compliant protocol.

8. The medium as in claim 1 wherein the method further comprises:

storing, in at least one log, statistics relating to data access of the media files or network errors which occur when receiving the media files;

receiving a request, through an API (Application Program Interface), to obtain the statistics.

9. A machine implemented method performed by a data processing system, the method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a playlist file;

receiving, at the client device in response to the request, the playlist file from a server device, the playlist file having Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) which indicate a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files;

determining whether the playlist file has a type parameter which indicates a type of playlist;

processing the playlist in accordance with the type parameter when the playlist file has the type parameter.

10. The method as in claim 9 wherein the type parameter is one of:

(a) Video on Demand (VOD);

(b) live;

or (c) event, and wherein a VOD playlist does not change and wherein an event has a specified and fixed beginning time for an event playlist and wherein the playlist is received through a network using a non-streaming transfer protocol and wherein the method further comprises;

requesting one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file; and

receiving the one or more requested media files through the network using the non-streaming transfer protocol.

11. The method as in claim 10 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured NOT to update the playlist and the client device is configured to save the playlist for future use when switching to a variant playlist for content referred to by the playlist.

12. The method as in claim 11 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured to generate an error signal when the playlist lacks an ENDLIST tag.

13. The method as in claim 10 wherein when the type parameter is live, the client device is configured to request an updated playlist.

14. The method as in claim 10 wherein when the type parameter is event, the client device is configured to either (a) load only a portion of an updated playlist or (b) parse only a portion of the updated playlist.

15. The method as in claim 10 wherein the method further comprises generating an audio or video or an audio/video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file and wherein the non-streaming transfer protocol comprises a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) compliant protocol.

16. A data processing system comprising:

means for requesting, with a client device, a playlist file;

means for receiving, at the client device in response to the request, the playlist file from a server device, the playlist file having Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) which indicate a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files;

means for determining whether the playlist file has a type parameter which indicates a type of playlist;

means for processing the playlist in accordance with the type parameter when the playlist file has the type parameter.

17. The system as in claim 16 wherein the type parameter is one of:

(a) Video on Demand (VOD);

(b) live;

or (c) event, and wherein a VOD playlist does not change and wherein an event has a specified and fixed beginning time for an event playlist and wherein the playlist is received through a network using a non-streaming transfer protocol and wherein the system further comprises;

means for requesting one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file; and

means for receiving the one or more requested media files through the network using the non-streaming transfer protocol.

18. The system as in claim 17 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured NOT to update the playlist and the client device is configured to save the playlist for future use when switching to a variant playlist for content referred to by the playlist and wherein when the type parameter is live, the client device is configured to request an updated playlist and wherein when the type parameter is event, the client device is configured to either (a) load only a portion of an updated playlist or (b) parse only a portion of the updated playlist.

19. A machine readable, tangible, non-transitory storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed, cause a data processing system to perform a method comprising:

receiving, at a server device, a request for a playlist file;

transmitting, from the server device in response to the request, the playlist file, the playlist file having Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) which indicate a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files, wherein the playlist file has a type parameter which indicates a type of playlist;

responding to requests from a client device which is processing the playlist in accordance with the type parameter.

20. The medium as in claim 19 wherein the type parameter is one of:

(a) Video on Demand (VOD);

(b) live;

or (c) event, and wherein a VOD playlist does not change and wherein an event has a specified and fixed beginning time for an event playlist and wherein the playlist is transmitted through a network using a non-streaming transfer protocol and wherein the method further comprises;

receiving requests for one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file; and

transmitting the one or more requested media files through the network using the non-streaming transfer protocol.

21. The medium as in claim 20 wherein when the type parameter is VOD the client device is configured NOT to update the playlist and the client device is configured to save the playlist for future use when switching to a variant playlist for content referred to by the playlist and wherein when the type parameter is live, the client device is configured to request an updated playlist and wherein when the type parameter is event, the client device is configured to either (a) load only a portion of an updated playlist or (b) parse only a portion of the updated playlist.