METHOD FOR PROCESSING MULTIMEDIA STREAMS

• US 20120076155A1
• Filed: 09/27/2010
• Published: 03/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Michael K. Kounnas
• Original Assignee: Michael K. Kounnas
• Inventors: KOUNNAS, Michael K.
• Granted Patent: US 9,462,333 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/465
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/324 in the data link layer [OSI layer 2], e.g. HDLC
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/438 Interfacing the downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. retrieving encoded video stream packets from an IP network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4516 involving client characteristics, e.g. Set-Top-Box type, software version or amount of memory available

Abstract

A method, machine readable medium, system, and device are disclosed. In one embodiment the method comprises determining whether one or more components that comprise a multimedia stream require real-time processing, if at least one of the one or more components require real-time processing, assigning the one or more components that require real-time processing to one or more real-time processes, and assigning any remaining components to one or more non-real-time processes.

Claims

1. A device, comprising logic to:

read a first packet, the first packet one of a plurality of packets comprising a multimedia packet stream, wherein the first packet comprises a plurality of components; and

for each component of the plurality of components within the packet

determine whether the component requires real-time-processing;

assign the component to be processed by a real-time process in response to the component requiring real-time processing; and

assign the component to be processed by a non-real-time process in response to the component not requiring real-time processing.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the logic is further operable to

determine a rate at which the plurality of packets are being received;

and

process each component within each packet at least at the rate the packets are being received.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the logic is further operable to

unwrap the first packet by separating each of the plurality of components comprising the first packet.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the logic is further operable to

assign a priority level to a component, wherein the priority level is calculated based on the importance of the component'"'"'s information.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein the logic is further operable to

determine a maximum delay allowable for a first component not requiring real-time processing;

and

assign the first component to a process that delivers at least the amount of processing required to process the first component within the maximum allowable delay.

6. The device of claim 4, wherein the logic is further operable to

process a plurality of the components of the first packet sequentially, wherein the sequence of the components to be processed is in the order of the priority levels per component, a highest priority level component being processed first and a lowest priority level component being processed last.

7. The device of claim 6, wherein the logic is further operable to

store the stream of packets in real-time on a storage device immediately after packet creation to prevent information loss of one or more low priority level packet components.

8. The device of claim 4, wherein the logic is further operable to:

omit at least one component of the first packet from being processed.

9. The device of claim 4, wherein the logic is further operable to

omit a component with the lowest priority level from the first packet.

10. The device of claim 9, wherein the logic is further operable to

set a maximum number of consecutive packets in the stream with the same omitted component.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein the logic is further operable to:

determine a first format of the packets in the stream transmitted from a source device;

determine a second format of the packets in the stream required by a destination device;

cause each packet within the stream to directly transmit between the source device and the destination device without processing in response to the first and second formats being equal.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein a process comprises an executable thread on a computing device.

13. The device of claim 1, wherein the logic is further operable to

assign at least two of the plurality of components within each packet to processes on separate computing devices.

14. The device of claim 1, wherein the logic is further operable to

assign two or more of the plurality of components to the same process.