MEDIA DISTRIBUTION AND MANAGEMENT PLATFORM

• US 20140181864A1
• Filed: 12/21/2012
• Published: 06/26/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: uStudio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: uStudio, Inc.
• Inventors: Marshall, Joshua, Grogono, Jen
• Granted Patent: US 8,826,332 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/436 using parallelised computational arrangements
• 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 21/23614 Multiplexing of additional data and video streams arrangements for simultaneous broadcast of plural pieces of information H04H20/28
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2385 Channel allocation H04N21/266 takes precedence; Bandwidth allocation H04N21/24 takes precedence ; allocation of channels according to the instantaneous demands of the users in time-division multiplex systems H04J3/1682; admission control, resource allocation in open networks H04L12/5692; arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896; negotiating bandwidth in wireless networks H04W28/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2547 Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6547 comprising parameters, e.g. for client setup

Abstract

An embodiment of the invention simplifies management of the “video lifecycle”. An embodiment includes one of more modules that streamline the video publishing process by abstracting technical steps such as video publishing, updating video, unpublishing video, retrieval or statistics concerning video, authorization to process video, validation of video, video metadata processing, video transcoding, and/or video transmission. Other embodiments are described herein.

Claims

1. At least one non-transitory machine readable medium comprising instructions that when executed on a computing device cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

coupling the computing device to a first medium that includes at least one of a physical storage medium and a network;

after coupling the computing device to the first medium, receiving a video file, which includes video, from at least one of an application program interface (API), a client application, and an end user via the first medium;

storing the video file in at least one memory which is coupled to at least one processor of the computing device and is further coupled to at least one display;

displaying a single instance of a graphical user interface (GUI) ,via the at least one display, that simultaneously provides a user with options to distribute the video to first, second, and third distribution channels;

in response to user input supplied via the single instance of the GUI, determining the video is to be distributed to the first and second distribution channels but not to the third distribution channel;

determining first and second characteristics for the video, the first and second characteristics selected from a group comprising file type, container type, video duration, video resolution, frame rate, video compression/decompression (codec) format, video codec profile, video compression bit rate, audio codec format, and audio compression bit rate;

in response to the user input, extracting at least one characteristic for each of the first and second distribution channels from one or more configuration files, the at least one characteristic selected from a group comprising file type, container type, video duration, video resolution, frame rate, and video compression bit rate;

in response to the user input, determining metadata requirements for the first and second distribution channels;

in response to the user input and to receiving user credentials for the first and second distribution channels, determining the user is authorized to distribute content to the first and second distribution channels;

in response to the user input, determining the first and second characteristics for the video, extracting at least one characteristic for each of the first and second distribution channels, determining metadata requirements for the first and second distribution channels, and determining the user is authorized to distribute content to the first and second distribution channels;

(a) transcoding the video into transcoded first video having a first format corresponding to the first distribution channel;

(b) transcoding the video into transcoded second video having a second format corresponding to the second distribution channel, the first format unequal to the second format;

(c) not transcoding the video into transcoded third video having a third format corresponding to the third distribution channel;

(d) packaging first metadata and the transcoded first video into a first container having a first container format and second metadata and the transcoded second video into a second container having a second container format different from the first container format, the first container format including at least one of XML, a HTTP-compatible protocol, and JSON; and

(e) publishing the first container to the first channel and the second container to the second channel via at least one of a content delivery network (CDN), a network file server, and an API;

wherein the first metadata includes at least one of a title for the video, file size for the video, a tag for content of the video, a description for the content of the video, publication date for the video, keywords for the video, compression rate for the video, and duration of playing time for the video.

2. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

respectively communicating first and second requests, to at least one of the first and second channels and a log file, for first metric data for the published first container and second metric data for the published second container;

in response to requesting the first and second metric data, obtaining the first metric data for the published first container and the second metric data for the published second container and storing the first and second metric data in the at least one memory;

wherein the first metric data is formatted differently from the second metric data;

the first metric data having a first metric data format and the second metric data having a second metric data format;

wherein the first request is formatted differently from the second request;

wherein the first and second metric data each include a statistic comprising at least one of view count, impressions, geographic data, and engagement data.

3. The at least one medium of claim 2, the method comprising normalizing the first and second metric data into common normalized data corresponding to the both the first and second metric data;

wherein the normalizing includes reformatting the second metric data to comply with the first metric data format.

4. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

estimating computing resources needed to transcode the video into the first and second transcoded videos;

selecting, from a hardware group including first, second, and third processor based systems, the first and second processor based systems, but not the third processor based system, to transcode the video into the first and second transcoded videos in response to the user input and estimating the computing resources.

6. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

displaying the single instance of the GUI that simultaneously provides the user with options to distribute the video to the first, second, and third distribution channels as well as a fourth distribution channel;

in response to user input, determining the video is to be distributed to the fourth distribution channel; and

determining to not attempt to transcode the video into transcoded fourth video having a fourth format corresponding to the fourth distribution channel in response to analyzing one of the determined first and second characteristics and consequently determining the video is not capable of being transcoded into the fourth format.

7. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

receiving, from the user, first account credentials corresponding to the first channel and second account credentials corresponding to the second channel; and

accessing the first channel via the first account credentials and the second channel via the second account credentials;

publishing the first container to the first channel and the second container to the second channel in response to accessing the first and second channels.

8. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

in response to the user input, determining which first channel information is necessary for the first channel and which second channel information is necessary for the second channel;

after determining which first channel information is necessary for the first channel and which second channel information is necessary for the second channel;

request the first and second channel information from the user;

wherein the first channel information is unequal to the second channel information;

wherein the first channel information includes one of a feed title, a file pointer, and a representative frame from the video.

10. The at least one medium of claim 1, wherein the first format includes a first bit rate and the second format includes a second bit rate unequal to the first bit rate.

21. The at least one medium of claim 1, wherein in response to determining metadata requirements for the first and second distribution channels, the method comprises:

receiving metadata information, specific to the first distribution channel, from the user;

unsuccessfully validating the metadata information; and

in response to unsuccessfully validating the metadata information, prompting the user for additional metadata information specific to the first distribution channel.

22. The at least one medium of claim 1,

wherein determining the user is authorized to distribute content to the first distribution channel comprises, in response to the user input, (a) determining to use a first authentication method to determine the user is authorized to distribute content to the first distribution channel, the first authentication method corresponding to the first distribution channel but not the second distribution channel;

and (b) prompting the user for additional authentication credentials that are specific to first authentication method and the first distribution channel;

wherein determining the user is authorized to distribute content to the second distribution channel comprises, in response to the user input, (a) determining to use a second authentication method, unequal to the first authentication method, to determine the user is authorized to distribute content to the second distribution channel, the second authentication method corresponding to the second distribution channel but not the first distribution channel.

23. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

receiving audio that corresponds to the video;

determining an audio characteristic for the audio;

in response to the user input, extracting an audio characteristic for the first distribution channel;

in response to the user input, determining the audio characteristic for the audio, and extracting the audio characteristic for the first distribution channel;

determining the audio does not need to be transcoded; and

packaging the audio into the first container.

24. The at least one medium of claim 1, the method comprising:

in response to the user input, determining a first transmission protocol for the first channel and a second transmission protocol for the second channel, the first transmission protocol being unequal to the second transmission protocol;

in response to determining the first and second transmission protocols, publishing the first container via the first transmission protocol and the second container via the second transmission protocol.

25. The at least one medium of claim 7, the method comprising:

receiving first metric data for the published first container and second metric data for the published second container in response to receiving the first and second account credentials and without having to prompt the user for either of the first and second account credentials after the receiving the first and second account credentials;

wherein the first metric data is formatted differently from the second metric data.

5. (canceled)

9. (canceled)

11. At least one machine readable medium comprising instructions that when executed on a computing device cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

in response to user input, determining video is to be distributed to first and second distribution channels but not to a third distribution channel and determining metadata requirements for the first and second distribution channels;

determining first and second characteristics for the video; and

transcoding the video into transcoded first video having a first format corresponding to the first distribution channel;

transcoding the video into transcoded second video having a second format corresponding to the second distribution channel, the first format unequal to the second format; and

not transcoding the video into transcoded third video having a third format corresponding to the third distribution channel.

12. The at least one medium of claim 11, the method comprising:

in response to determining the metadata requirements for the first distribution channel, reformatting first metadata corresponding to the video to comply with the metadata requirements for the first distribution channel;

packaging the reformatted first metadata and the transcoded first video into a first container and second metadata and the transcoded second video into a second container.

13. The at least one medium of claim 12, the method comprising publishing the first container to the first channel and the second container to the second channel.

14. The at least one medium of claim 13, the method comprising receiving first metric data for the published first container and second metric data for the published second container;

wherein the first metric data is formatted differently from the second metric data;

wherein the first and second metric data are each selected from the group comprising plays, impressions, geographic data, and engagement data.

15. The at least one medium of claim 14, the method comprising normalizing the first and second metric data into common normalized data corresponding to the both the first and second metric data.

16. The at least one medium of claim 11, the method comprising:

in response to user input, determining the video is to be distributed to a fourth distribution channel; and

determining to not transcode the video into transcoded fourth video having a fourth format corresponding to the fourth distribution channel in response to analyzing one of the determined first and second characteristics and determining the analyzed one of the determined first and second characteristics does not satisfy a criterion corresponding to the fourth format.

17. The at least one medium of claim 11, the method comprising:

receiving, from the user, first account credentials corresponding to the first channel and second account credentials corresponding to the second channel;

accessing the first channel via the first account credentials and the second channel via the second account credentials.

18. The at least one medium of claim 11, the method comprising:

determining which first channel information is necessary for the first channel and which second channel information is necessary for the second channel; and

after determining which first channel information is necessary for the first channel and which second channel information is necessary for the second channel;

request the first and second channel information from the user;

wherein the first channel information is unequal to the second channel information

wherein the first channel information includes one of a username, a password, a feed title, a file pointer, and a representative frame from the video.

20. The at least one medium of claim 11, wherein the first format includes a first bit rate and the second format a second bit rate unequal to the first bit rate.

19. (canceled)