METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR LOAD BALANCING BETWEEN A VIDEO SERVER AND CLIENT

• US 20120271948A1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Johnson Controls Tyco IP Holdings LLP (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Original Assignee: Sensormatic Electronics LLC (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Inventors: MARTIN, Walter Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,258,625 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2405 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the server, e.g. server load allocation of resources in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/50; performance measurement of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25808 Management of client data terminal profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4424 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38

Abstract

A method and system for balancing the load and resource requirements in a digital video distribution system between a video server and its video clients by allowing the server and the clients to exchange resource capabilities with each other. Upon receipt of a request for a video stream from among available video content, the server determines whether it or the requesting client should scale the video stream based on which entity, client or server, is better equipped to scale the requested video stream to comply with the requesting client'"'"'s resources and resolution capacity.

Claims

1. A method for resource balancing between a video server and at least one video client in a video distribution network, the method comprising:

receiving a request from a video client for a video stream from a listing of available video content, the requested video stream conforming to a resource capability of the requesting video client;

determining if the request for the video stream is from a client having the lowest resource capability from among the at least one video client;

if the requesting client has the lowest resource capability from among the at least one video client, calculating required resources to provide the requesting client with a selected video stream meeting the requesting client'"'"'s resource capability; and

balancing the resources in the video distribution network by determining whether the video server is to transcode the selected video stream.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein if it is determined that the video server is to transcode, further comprising transcoding the selected video stream at the video server.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising updating the listing of available video content to include the transcoded video stream.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising requesting that the video client send a request for the transcoded video stream.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein if the video server is not to transcode the video stream, further comprising transmitting a message to the requesting video client indicating that video server will not transcode the selected video stream.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a transcode resource table defining a capability of the video server to transcode video streams.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising updating the transcode resource table after each video client request.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the video server is to transcode the selected video stream includes calculating transcode resources of the video server.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining whether the video server is to transcode the selected video stream includes comparing the requesting video client'"'"'s resource capability with the transcode resources of the video server.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein transcoding the selected video stream includes using less than a predetermined amount of transcoding resources.

11. A video distribution system for resource balancing between a video server and at least one video client in a video distribution network comprising:

a database containing a listing of available video content; and

a video server in communication with the database, the video server adapted to;

receive a request from a video client for a video stream from a listing of available video content, the requested video stream conforming to a resource capability of the requesting video client;

determine if the request for the video stream is from a client having the lowest resource capability from among the at least one video client;

if the requesting client has the lowest resource capability from among the at least one video client, calculate required resources to provide the requesting client with a selected video stream meeting the requesting client'"'"'s resource capability; and

balance the resources in the video distribution network by determining whether the video server is to transcode the selected video stream.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the video server is adapted to transcode the selected video stream if the video server determines that it is able to transcode.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the video server updates the listing of available video content to include the transcoded video stream.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the video server periodically publishes the listing of available video content.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein if the video server is not to transcode the video stream, the video server transmits a message to the requesting video client indicating that video server will not transcode the selected video stream.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the video server generates a transcode capability table defining a capability of the video server to transcode video streams.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the video server updates the transcode capability table after each video client request.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the video server determines to transcode the selected video stream by calculating transcode resources of the video server.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the video server determines to transcode the selected video stream comparing the requesting video client'"'"'s resource capability with the transcode resources of the video server

20. A method for resource balancing between a video server and at least one video client in a video distribution network, the method comprising:

sending to the video server a request for a video stream from a listing of available video content;

sending to the video server resource capabilities corresponding to the requesting video client, the video server balancing the resources in the video distribution network by determining whether the video server or the requesting video client is to scale the selected video stream; and

resending a request for the scaled video stream.