Constant-Quality Rate-Adaptive Streaming

• US 20130042015A1
• Filed: 08/12/2011
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Begen, Ali C., Oran, David R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,924,580 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: B63B 15/0083 Masts for sailing ships or boats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 9/066 Sailing; Surfing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/146 Data rate or code amount at the encoder output
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/154 Measured or subjectively estimated visual quality after decoding, e.g. measurement of distortion use of rate-distortion criteria H04N19/147
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/169 characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/39 involving multiple description coding [MDC], i.e. with separate layers being structured as independently decodable descriptions of input picture data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/46 Embedding additional information in the video signal during the compression process H04N19/517, H04N19/68, H04N19/70 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• 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 21/44209 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 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• 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 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method that receives a manifest for plural encoded representations of a single content stream, each representation fragmented into plural chunks, each representation comprising a different quality level, the manifest listing a plurality of representations, each representation comprising the plural chunks at one of a plurality of quality levels, and requests one of the plural chunks based on selection of one of the plurality of quality levels explicitly indicated in the manifest.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

encoding by an encoding device a received content stream at a plurality of quality levels, each quality level explicitly specified as input to the encoder in preference to deriving the quality level from a specified average or maximum bitrate;

fragmenting a plurality of encoded content streams at the plurality of quality levels into a plurality of chunks for each of the representations of the encoded content stream; and

providing a manifest listing the plurality of representations and an explicit indication of the plurality of quality levels, wherein a first of the plurality of representations comprises a first set of the chunks at a first quality level, wherein the first set of the chunks comprises chunks of varying size, wherein a second of the plurality of representations comprises a second set of the chunks at a second quality level, wherein the second set of the chunks comprises chunks of varying size, the first and second quality levels explicitly indicated in the manifest.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein metadata for each chunk comprises one of the plurality of quality levels and a size of the chunk with its duration information or the chunk bitrate.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending the manifest and the plurality of chunks to a network device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of quality levels comprises a quality metric.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the content stream comprises video.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein fragmenting comprises segmenting the encoded content stream into plural sets of frames of the same quality level.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the content stream comprises audio.

8. A network device, comprising:

a memory comprising logic and a manifest for plural encoded representations of a single content stream, each representation fragmented into plural chunks, each representation comprising a different quality level, the manifest listing a plurality of representations, each representation comprising the plural chunks at one of a plurality of quality levels, the plurality of quality levels explicitly indicated in the manifest, wherein the plural chunks vary in size; and

a processor configured by the logic to;

responsive to a request from a client device, provide one of the plural chunks to the client device based on the quality level information in the manifest.

9. The network device of claim 8, further comprising communicating the manifest to the client device.

10. The network device of claim 9, wherein the request comprises an identification of one of:

a single chunk or a subset of plural chunks as indicated by one of;

byte range, time, or frame index.

11. The network device of claim 8, wherein the request comprises a maximum and minimum bitrate constraint.

12. The network device of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured by the logic to determine, by reference to the manifest, which of the plural chunks provides the best quality subject to one or more bitrate constraints.

13. The network device of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured by the logic to directly track the quality of the content provided to the client device.

14. The network device of claim 8, wherein the explicit indication of the quality level comprises a quality metric.

15. The network device of claim 8, wherein the content stream comprises audio, video, or a combination of audio and video.

16. A client device, comprising:

a memory comprising logic; and

a processor configured by the logic to;

receive a manifest for plural encoded representations of a single content stream, each representation fragmented into plural chunks of varying size, each representation comprising a different quality level, the manifest listing a plurality of representations, each representation comprising the plural chunks at one of a plurality of quality levels; and

request one of the plural chunks based on selection of one of the plurality of quality levels explicitly indicated in the manifest.

17. The client device of claim 16, wherein processor is further configured by the logic to determine whether to shift up in quality level, shift down in quality level, or maintain the current quality level based on at least one of:

bandwidth constraints, buffer conditions and other network, and device-specific requirements and observations.

18. The client device of claim 17, wherein the processor is further configured by the logic to shift up and request a chunk of a higher quality level when available bandwidth can sustain the average bitrate prescribed by the higher quality level for a predetermined period of time.

19. The client device of claim 17, wherein the processor is further configured by the logic to shift down and request a chunk of a lower quality level when available bandwidth can no longer sustain the average bitrate prescribed by the current quality level for a predetermined period of time.

20. The client device of claim 17, wherein the processor is further configured by the logic to maintain the current quality level and request a chunk from the same representation as the currently processed chunk when available bandwidth can sustain the average bitrate prescribed by the current quality level for a predetermined period of time regardless of temporary increases or decreases in bandwidth availability.