METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PARSING A NETWORK ABSTRACTION-LAYER FOR RELIABLE DATA COMMUNICATION

• US 20130003579A1
• Filed: 01/28/2010
• Published: 01/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Thomson Licensing LLC (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing LLC (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Lu, Xiuping, Mandrekar, Ishan Uday, Perumanam, Ramkumar, Liu, Hang
• Application Number:
  US13/575,653
• Publication Number:
  US 20130003579A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/18 End to end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 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 21/631 Multimode Transmission, e.g. transmitting basic layers and enhancement layers of the content over different transmission paths or transmitting with different error corrections, different keys or with different transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6375 for requesting retransmission , e.g. of data packets lost or corrupted during transmission from serverARQ protocols H04L1/18; implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6437 Real-time Transport Protocol [RTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8451 using Advanced Video Coding [AVC]

Abstract

A method and apparatus are described including parsing an abstraction-layer header, assigning a priority to a packet to be transmitted, buffering the data to be transmitted, transmitting data retrieved from a buffer via a datagram protocol, receiving a request for retransmission of data, determining if the requested data is in the buffer and retransmitting the requested data via a protocol that provides end-to-end acknowledgement of data and error recovery. A network monitor of a transmitter is connected between a network interface and a retransmission decision maker for deciding which packets to retransmit, for example, based on the assigned priority and collected network statistics. A network monitor may also be provided at a receiver for collecting current network statistics and reporting them to transmitter.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

parsing an abstraction-layer header of a digital data packet to obtain layer representation data; and

assigning a priority to said digital data packet for said representation layer responsive to said parsing.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein

said obtaining layer representation data comprises determining spatial scalability (BYTE 1) comprising inter-layer coding dependency level.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein

said obtaining layer representation data comprises determining a quality level of grain scalability (BYTE 1).

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein

said obtaining layer representation data comprises determining temporal level of said layer representation (BYTE 2).

5. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

representing said priority level in a payload type field (PT) of a real-time transport packet header.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

representing said priority level in a type of service (TOS) field of an internet protocol packet header.

7. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

storing a digital data file for parsing.

8. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

receiving digital data for parsing at a de-packetizer.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein

said abstraction layer header comprises an H.264 compliant network abstraction-layer header.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein

a base layer is assigned a high priority level.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein

an enhancement layer is assigned a medium priority level.

12. The method according to claim 11 wherein

a higher enhancement layer is assigned a low priority level.

13. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

collecting current network statistics at a network monitor (270) connected to a digital network interface.

14. The method according to claim 13 wherein

said network statistics comprise channel condition data comprising one of available bandwidth, end-to-end packet loss rate and round trip delay.

15. The method according to claim 14 further comprising:

storing recently transmitted packets in memory and

determining whether to selectively retransmit a requested lost packet stored in said memory responsive to said channel condition data determined by said network monitor.

16. An apparatus comprising:

an abstraction-layer header parser to obtain layer representation data from a digital data packet and assign a priority to said layer representation data and

a buffer memory for storing recently transmitted packets with said assigned priority in said memory.

17. The apparatus according to claim 16 further comprising:

a network monitor for monitoring current network statistical data and a retransmission decision maker responsive to said network monitor.

18. The apparatus according to claim 16 wherein

said abstraction-layer header parser parses an H.264 compliant network abstraction layer header.

19. A digital data processing apparatus comprising:

means for parsing an abstraction-layer header of a digital data packet to obtain layer representation data; and

means for assigning a priority to said digital data packet for said representation layer responsive to said parsing.

20. The apparatus according to claim 19 further comprising:

means for storing recently transmitted packets with said assigned priority.

21. The apparatus according to claim 19 further comprising:

means for monitoring current network statistical data and means responsive to said monitoring means.

22. The apparatus according to claim 19 wherein

said means for parsing an abstraction-layer header parses an H.264 compliant network abstraction layer header.