SCALABLE, LIVE TRANSCODING WITH SUPPORT FOR ADAPTIVE STREAMING AND FAILOVER

• US 20130272374A1
• Filed: 04/11/2012
• Published: 10/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Foucu, Thierry, Shastri, Vijnan, Eswaran, Krishnan, Sun, Jie, Gadepalli, Krishna Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 9,246,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/561 Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2343 involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234309 by transcoding between formats or standards, e.g. from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 or from Quicktime to Realvideo conversion of standards in analog television systems H04N7/01
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A system and method for a live streaming platform that can redundantly process input streams in parallel ingestion pipelines is disclosed herein. Ingested input streams in the parallel pipelines can be segmented using a segmentation function that creates identical segments in each of the streams in the pipelines. If errors occur, or there are disruptions in one or more of the input streams or pipelines, the live streaming platform can ensure that segments are identifiable and different parts of the pipelines can join a main stream at different points in time without disruption.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a memory that stores computer executable components;

a processor that executes the following computer executable components stored in the memory;

a segment identification component that identifies segment boundaries within an interval of input streams for a plurality of transcoding pipelines;

a transcoding component that transcodes the input streams of the plurality of transcoding pipelines; and

a segmentation component that segments the input streams into equivalent chunks based on the segment boundaries identified, wherein the input streams include different transcode qualities.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a conjoining component that combines the input streams, the input streams including an audio stream and a video stream, from the plurality of transcoding pipelines into a single stream having the equivalent chunks.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the transcoding component transcodes the audio stream separately from the video stream.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the transcoding component transcodes the input streams in parallel with a delay for each input stream.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the transcoding component adjusts the delay for different inputs streams.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the delay is adaptive according to a latency of processing in respective transcoding pipelines.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an attribute component that attributes metadata to the input streams that preserves attributes of an input stream respectively, the attributes including original timestamps of the equivalent chunks respectively.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the attribute component attaches original starting and ending timestamps to each of the equivalent chunks.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a synchronizing component that synchronizes the input streams having different formats that are processed within different transcoding pipelines of the plurality of transcoding pipelines, the synchronizing component synchronizing the input streams based on metadata attributed to the input streams.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the equivalent chunks respectively include segments of the input streams having substantially identical starting and ending times from a same source being an audio source and a video source, or, the audio source or the video source.

11. A method comprising:

using a processor to execute computer executable instructions stored in a memory to perform the following acts;

identifying segment boundaries of input streams within an interval for a plurality of transcoding pipelines;

transcoding the input streams of the plurality of transcoding pipelines;

segmenting the input streams transcoded into equivalent chunks based on the segment boundaries indentified, the input streams transcoded having different transcode qualities.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the transcode qualities include different bitrates and different formats of the input streams respectively.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

combining the input streams into a single stream having the equivalent chunks.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

transcoding the input streams by processing the input streams redundantly in parallel with a delay for each transcoding pipeline of the plurality of transcoding pipelines.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

attributing metadata to the input streams that includes attributes of the input stream respectively.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

synchronizing the input streams based on the metadata of the input streams.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the input streams include an input metadata stream that includes the transcode qualities for the input streams including bitrate and format data associated with each input stream.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the synchronizing the input streams includes synchronizing the input streams having different bitrates and different formats respectively based on the metadata, the metadata including original starting and ending timestamps for the equivalent chunks respectively.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the transcoding the input streams of the plurality of transcoding pipelines comprises transcoding redundant input streams in separate parallel transcoding pipelines, the input streams including a first input stream of a first format and a second input stream of a second different format and timestamp that are combined and synchronized into a single consistent stream with the equivalent chunks.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions that in response to execution, cause a computing system to perform operations, comprising:

identifying segment boundaries in a first redundant input stream and a second redundant input data stream of a transcoding pipeline;

transcoding the first redundant input stream and the second input data stream in parallel;

segmenting the first redundant input stream and the second redundant input stream into equivalent chunks based on the segment boundaries indentified.

21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 20, further comprising:

attributing different timestamps to the first redundant input stream and the second redundant input stream based on processing times in a parallel transcoding pipeline.

22. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising:

synchronizing the first redundant input stream and the second redundant input stream into a single consistent stream with the equivalent chunks, the first redundant input stream and the second redundant input stream having different bitrates and formats from one another.