RENDERING CONTENT FOR PERSONAL OVER-THE-TOP NETWORK VIDEO RECORDER

• US 20140229976A1
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Published: 08/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ericsson AB (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Original Assignee: Azuki Systems, Inc (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Inventors: Ma, Kevin J., Hickey, Robert, Tweedale, Paul, Biagini, Daniel, Navali, Prabhudev, Li, Man
• Granted Patent: US 9,584,847 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• 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: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/231 Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• 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 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2747 Remote storage of video programs received via the downstream path, e.g. from the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content

Abstract

Live streaming video content is processed and stored for real-time delivery of the content, future VoD viewing of the content, and time-shifted viewing of the content, by manipulating a common manifest or playlist. Previously stored content may be reordered and/or recombined in order to provide a personalized content viewing experience.

Claims

1. A method for rendering content, the content available in one or more distinct encodings each including a respective set of sequential segments, comprising:

proxying a manifest request from a media player to a content server;

selecting a preferred encoding for requested content to be delivered;

determining a set of npvr manifests required to satisfy the content request and obtaining a selected one of the set of npvr manifests associated with the selected encoding, the npvr manifests specifying locations of segments of the respective encodings;

constructing a variant manifest from the selected npvr manifest; and

providing the variant manifest to the media player for use in obtaining the segments of the respective encoding for playback of the content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting specified segments in the content corresponding to advertisements that may be replaced;

selecting a preferred advertisement server from a plurality of advertisement servers;

querying the preferred advertisement server for an alternate advertisement; and

replacing the specified segments in the npvr manifest with segments specified by the preferred advertisement server in a variant stream manifest.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a preferred content delivery network (CDN) from a plurality of CDNs containing identical content and rewriting segment uniform resource locators (URLs) of an npvr manifest; and

replacing a first base URL pointing to an original CDN with a second base URL of the preferred CDN in a variant stream manifest.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a variant manifest is constructed as a sliding-window variant manifest by adding a new reference to a next segment and removing an existing reference to an earliest segment in a predetermined window of most recent segments.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the content is live streaming content and the sliding-window variant manifest is continually updated as new segments of the live streaming content are generated to function as a live streaming manifest for real-time playback of the live streaming content by the media player.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the continual updating of the sliding-window variant manifest includes:

finding and retrieving a most recent npvr manifest;

if the most recent npvr manifest contains all the most recent segments in the predetermined window, then extracting the segments from the most recent npvr manifest;

if the most recent npvr manifest does not contain all the most recent segments in the predetermined window, then finding a next sequentially preceding npvr manifest and extracting the most recent segments in the predetermined window from both the most recent and next sequentially preceding npvr manifests; and

constructing the live streaming manifest from the extracted segments.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising retrieving updates for the most recent npvr manifest periodically.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising using a byte range request to limit the amount of data retrieved in subsequent npvr manifest retrievals by requesting only data beyond the byte range of the previous npvr manifest retrieval through the end of file.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

detecting completion of a current npvr manifest;

determining a location for a next sequential npvr manifest; and

issuing subsequent requests to the location of the next sequential npvr manifest.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the content is live streaming content and the sliding-window variant manifest is created based on a target segment of a time-shift playback request to function as a time-shifted manifest for time-shifted playback of a portion of the live streaming content by the media player.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

finding and retrieving an offset npvr manifest containing the target segment;

if the offset npvr manifest contains all the most recent segments in the predetermined window, then extracting the segments from the offset npvr manifest;

if the offset npvr manifest does not contain all the most recent segments in the predetermined window, then finding a next sequentially preceding or following npvr manifest and extracting the most recent segments in the predetermined window from both the offset and next sequentially preceding or following npvr manifests; and

constructing the time-shifted manifest from the extracted segments.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising using monotonically increasing sequence numbers in the time-shifted manifest to simulate a continuous streaming playback, while maintaining a mapping between a current time-shifted manifest sequence number and a sequence number of the target segment.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising restarting the media player and resetting the time-shifted manifest sequence number whenever a new seek operation occurs.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising restarting the media player and switching to a live manifest file if a seek request goes beyond the most recent segment generated.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising inserting discontinuity indicators into the time-shifted manifest when the time-shift playback request involves a seek to a new playback position.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein finding the offset manifest includes calculating a relative time from a most recently used segment in a most recently used npvr manifest, and identifying the npvr manifest corresponding to the relative time as the offset manifest.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the offset is calculated based on a specific user'"'"'s aggregate playback requests since a last media player restart, the calculation increasing the offset for time watched and fast forward operations, and decreasing the offset for rewind operations.

18. The method of claim 4, wherein constructing the variant manifest as a sliding-window variant manifest includes finding and retrieving multiple most recent npvr manifests to extract all the most recent segments in the predetermined window from the most recent npvr manifests, and further including (i) caching most recently completed npvr manifests and (ii) retrieving the most recent npvr manifests from the cached completed npvr manifests.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

finding a proper encryption key to be associated with each segment in the variant manifest;

using the proper encryption key for each segment in the variant manifest; and

adjusting initialization vector (IV) information for the proper encryption key to correspond with the each segment in the variant manifest.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the content is recorded content and a variant manifest is constructed as a video-on-demand (VOD) non-sliding-window variant manifest usable for VOD playback of the recorded content by the media player.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

finding and retrieving a first npvr manifest referred to as a start manifest which contains a starting time for the program, and finding a first segment referred to as a start segment in the start manifest, the start segment having a start time most closely preceding a desired program start time;

finding and retrieving a second npvr manifest referred to as an end manifest which contains and ending time for the program, and finding a second segment referred to as an end segment in the end manifest, the end segment having an end time most closely following the desired program end time;

retrieving all npvr manifests corresponding to a time between the start manifest and the end manifest; and

constructing the VoD non-sliding-window variant manifest by concatenating all npvr manifests starting with the start manifest and ending with the end manifest, while excluding segments preceding the start segment in the start manifest and segments following the end segment in the end manifest.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the set of npvr manifests defining a program is determined based off of a contiguous wall-clock time range.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising personalizing the time range based on a specific user'"'"'s personal recording criteria.