ENFORCEMENT OF TRICK-PLAY DISABLEMENT IN ADAPTIVE BIT RATE VIDEO CONTENT DELIVERY

• US 20130311670A1
• Filed: 05/15/2013
• Published: 11/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Tarbox, Brian J., Elstermann, Erik J., Falvo, Barry P.
• Granted Patent: US 9,537,920 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/75 Media network packet handling
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23805 Controlling the feeding rate to the network, e.g. by controlling the video pump
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2387 Stream processing in response to a playback request from an end-user, e.g. for trick-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80

Abstract

Disclosed is a comprising generating a top level manifest file for a media asset or stream that includes program event information, providing the top level manifest file and corresponding element manifest files to a real-time adaptive bitrate (“ABR”) packager, and receiving a request for a media-segment file from a client, wherein the ABR packager is configured to interpret the program event information, and wherein the ABR packager is configured to restrict trick-play operations if a program event is detected in a requested media-segment file and restriction criteria are met.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating a top level manifest file for a media asset or stream, the top level manifest file including program event information;

providing the top level manifest file and corresponding element manifest files to a real-time adaptive bitrate (“

ABR”

) packager; and

receiving a request for a media-segment file from a client;

wherein the ABR packager is configured to interpret the program event information; and

wherein the ABR packager is configured to restrict trick-play operations if a program event is detected in a requested media-segment file and restriction criteria are met.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein restricting trick-play operations includes preventing delivery of future media-segment files until the program event has been retrieved.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein restricting trick-play operations includes imposing a predetermined time period for a program event to be decoded before a user can retrieve subsequent media-segment files.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the predetermined time period is implemented using a timer.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the predetermined time period is determined from SCTE-35 splice or program event signaling.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein the predetermined time period is unique per client.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein the ABR packager is configured to dynamically adjust the predetermined time period on a per-program, per-program event, or per-client basis.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the program event is selected from the group consisting of:

advertisements, advertisement opportunities, and content provider-supplied indications of program event importance.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining the media-segment file from the corresponding element manifest files.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the program event is identifiable by a flag in the top level manifest file ingested by the ABR packager.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the program event is identifiable by in-band signaling.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the in-band signaling uses SCTE-35.

13. A system comprising:

a video coder configured to receive a program stream including program event information and configured to output multiple adaptive bitrate (“

ABR”

) streams;

memory configured to record the multiple ABR streams; and

an ABR packager configured to request at least one of the multiple ABR streams from memory and to deliver the at least one of the multiple ABR streams to a client.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the video coder comprises a video decoder configured to decode the program stream.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the system comprises at least one of:

an integrated circuit, a microprocessor, and a wireless communication device that includes the video decoder.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the system comprises at least one of:

an integrated circuit, a microprocessor, and a wireless communication device that includes the video coder.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the ABR packager is further configured to interpret program event information.

18. The system of claim 13 further comprising an ad decision system (“

ADS”

) in communication with the ABR packager, the ADS configured to determine which, if any, local advertisements or alternate content to substitute during an ad break.