Methods for Delivery of Flows of Objects over Broadcast/Multicast Enabled Networks

• US 20140307734A1
• Filed: 04/10/2014
• Published: 10/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Luby, Michael George, Stockhammer, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,900,166 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/390
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1868 Measures taken after transmission, e.g. acknowledgments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1886 with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/189 in combination with wireless systems selective distribution or broadcast in wireless communication networks H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM] H04L51/04; selective video distribution H04N21/00
• 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: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/00 Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD] real-time bi-directional transmission of motion video data H04N7/14 ; broadcast or conference over packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/85406 involving a specific file format, e.g. MP4 format
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services

Abstract

Content (e.g., multimedia streams, audio-video streams, video files, text, etc.) may be delivered to receiver devices over a broadcast channel and/or via a broadcast network via components (e.g., servers, receiver device, software applications, modules, processes, etc.) configured to communicate the content in a manner that reduces the amount of information communicated over the broadcast network, reduces the amount network bandwidth consumed by the communication, meets precise timing requirements for the individual objects that are communicated, and enables each receiver device to receive, decode, and render the content without consuming an excess amount of that receiver device'"'"'s battery or processing resources.

Claims

1. A method of communicating information via a broadcast network, comprising:

associating a collection of related source objects with a source flow; and

transmitting source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network so that source objects may be received and recovered by a receiver device based on their relationship to each other.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a source flow identifier for the source flow; and

including the source flow identifier in a packet that includes data of at least one source object in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

using a byte range in the packet to identify data in the packet.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

including a byte range in the packet that identifies data of a source object in the packet.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

using a transmission session identifier (TSI) field of the packet as the source flow identifier.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises including the source flow identifier in a transmission session identifier (TSI) field of the packet.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

using a combination of an Internet protocol (IP) destination address field and a user datagram protocol (UDP) port number field of the packet as the source flow identifier.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises including the source flow identifier in a combination of an Internet protocol (IP) destination address field and a user datagram protocol (UDP) port number field.

9. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

using a codepoint (CP) field of the packet as the source flow identifier.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises including the source flow identifier in a codepoint (CP) field of a data packet.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein:

transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises transmitting a plurality of collections of related source objects, each collection being associated with one of a plurality of different source flows, each of the plurality of different source flows including a unique source flow identifier; and

including the source flow identifier in the packet that includes data of at least one source object in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow comprises including the unique source flow identifier of the source flow in the packet that includes data of that source object.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises transmitting at least one packet that includes forward error correction (FEC) repair data, a repair flow identifier, and a repair object identifier, the method further comprising:

associating a repair flow with one or more of the plurality of different source flows;

determining the repair flow identifier for the repair flow;

determining a collection of repair object identifiers for the repair flow; and

determining, based at least in part on a combination of the repair flow identifier and the repair object identifier of a packet, from which of the source objects from the associated plurality of source flows the FEC repair data included in the packet is generated.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the repair flow identifier is included in a transmission session identifier (TSI) field.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the repair flow identifier is included in the combination of an Internet protocol (IP) destination address field and a user datagram protocol (UDP) port number field.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the repair flow identifier is included in a codepoint (CP) field.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the repair object identifier is a transmission object identifier (TOI).

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the repair object identifier is an object sequence number (OSN).

18. The method of claim 12, wherein transmitting at least one packet that includes FEC repair data comprises:

transmitting at least one packet that includes FEC repair data in the same time interval as the packet that includes data for a corresponding source object.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

generating FEC repair data for packets having the same repair flow identifier and same repair object identifier from two source objects in different source flows so that an amount of data received in combination from the packets having the same repair flow identifier and same repair object identifier and from packets containing data for either of the two source objects that is greater than or equal to an aggregate size of the two source objects is sufficient to decode the two source objects.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein portions of the repair flow identifier are included in different data fields of the packet that includes FEC repair data.

21. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

determining a repair flow declaration for the repair flow so that the repair flow declaration includes information suitable for signaling a relationship between the repair object identifier in the packet that includes FEC repair data and source objects from the collection of related source objects associated with source flows from which the FEC repair data in the packet is generated.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

using a template to signal the relationship via the repair flow declaration.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein a portion of the repair flow declaration is transmitted to the receiver device in advance of at least one source object associated with the source flow associated with the repair flow.

24. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

determining a source object identifier for each source object in the collection of related source objects; and

including the source object identifier in one or more packets that include data for source objects.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

using a combination of the source flow identifier and the source object identifier to identify a corresponding source object in the collection of related source objects.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein including the source object identifier in the packet that includes data comprises:

including the source object identifier in the packet so that a combination of the source flow identifier and the source object identifier identifies a corresponding source object for which the packet carries data.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

using a transmission object identifier (TOI) as the source object identifier.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

using an object sequence number (OSN) as the source object identifier.

29. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

transmitting forward error correction (FEC) repair data for the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network so that the source objects can be received and recovered by the receiver device based on their relationship to each other,

wherein each packet that includes FEC repair data for one or more of related source objects associated with the source flow includes the source flow identifier identifying the source flow for which the packet includes FEC repair data,

wherein each packet that includes FEC repair data for one or more of the related source objects associated with the source flow carries one or more source object identifiers of one or more source objects from which the FEC repair data carried in the packet is generated, and

wherein a combination of the source flow identifier and one or more source object identifiers identifies one or more source objects from the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow from which the FEC repair data carried in the packet is generated.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising transmitting packets carrying FEC repair data generated from the one or more source objects in the same interval of time as packets carrying data for the one or more source objects.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network comprises:

transmitting the source objects independent of their corresponding repair objects.

32. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

using session description protocol (SDP) information to distinguish a source object from its corresponding repair object.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one source object in the collection of related source objects includes a byte range of a file.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein a uniform resource locator (URL) is associated with the file, the method further comprising:

identifying the at least one source object via the URL and the byte range.

35. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one source object in the collection of related source objects is a file.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein a uniform resource locator (URL) is associated with the file, the method further comprising:

identifying the at least one source object via the URL.

37. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one source object in the collection of related source objects includes a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header and a byte range of a file.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein at least some of the source objects includes an HTTP header, an associated file, and an HTTP trailer.

39. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a source flow declaration for a collection of source objects associated with the source flow so that the source flow declaration includes information suitable for signaling relationships between a location, name, availability time, or other metadata for the collection of source objects associated with the source flow.

40. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises transmitting the collection of related source objects via multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS).

41. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises transmitting the collection of related source objects via file delivery over unidirectional transport (FLUTE).

42. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises transmitting the source objects without transmitting forward error correction (FEC) signaling information.

43. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the source objects comprise an hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header and a byte range of a file.

44. A method of transmitting one or more source objects over a broadcast network, comprising:

receiving portions of an entire file;

generating source objects based on the received portions prior to receiving the entire file; and

transmitting the generated source objects to a receiver device prior to receiving the entire file.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises:

transmitting data for the generated source objects in a different order than a data order of the entire file.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein receiving portions of the entire file comprises receiving portions of a file that includes a file size at the beginning of the file, and wherein data of a source object is transmitted in an order such that at least some data of the file after the file size is transmitted before the file size.

47. The method of claim 44, wherein a source object comprises an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header and an associated file.

48. The method of claim 44, wherein a source object comprises an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header, an associated file and an HTTP trailer.

49. The method of claim 44, further comprising:

determining a source flow declaration for a collection of source objects associated with a source flow,

wherein the source flow declaration signals relationships between a location, name, availability time, or other metadata for the collection of source objects associated with the source flow.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

using a template to signal relationship information in the source flow declaration.

51. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow.

52. The method of claim 51, wherein transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow comprises transmitting a portion that includes at least one of:

timing information;

uniform resource identifier (URI); and

information identifying decryption keys for source objects.

53. The method of claim 51, wherein transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow comprises:

sending a portion of the source flow declaration out-of-band to the receiver device in advance of transmitting at least one source object associated with the source flow; and

sending another portion of the source flow declaration in-band with a source object.

54. The method of claim 53, wherein sending another portion of the source flow declaration in-band with the source object comprises sending an indication of a last portion of data for the source object.

55. The method of claim 51, wherein providing portions of the source flow declaration to the receiver device comprises sending portions of the source flow declaration via a unidirectional transport protocol without sending a file delivery table.

56. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises transmitting a collection of related source objects via multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS).

57. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises transmitting a collection of related source objects via file delivery over unidirectional transport (FLUTE).

58. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting a collection of related source objects comprises transmitting source objects independent of their corresponding repair objects.

59. The method of claim 44, further comprising using session description protocol (SDP) information to distinguish a source object from its corresponding repair object.

60. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises transmitting the source objects without transmitting forward error correction (FEC) signaling information.

61. The method of claim 44, further comprising:

performing forward error correction (FEC) operations to protect portions of an individual source object.

62. The method of claim 61, further comprising:

transmitting the individual source object with multiple FEC encodings.

63. The method of claim 61, further comprising:

adding a transmission object identifier (TOI) or object sequence number (OSN) for a protected portion of a source object in a repair packet header; and

adding a byte range of the protected portion at an end of its transport source block.

64. The method of claim 61, further comprising:

adding source symbols at the beginning of a portion of a source object to be protected; and

adding a byte range of a protected portion in a repair packet header.

65. The method of claim 61, further comprising:

adding a starting position of a byte range of a protected portion of a source object and a number of symbols that are covered by the byte range within a repair packet header; and

adding a size of the protected portion in bytes or octets at an end of a transport source block.

66. The method of claim 44, wherein transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises:

delivering a source object to the receiver device via a unidirectional protocol as a combination of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) entity header and an HTTP entity body so that the source object is suitable for use in the receiver device as a regularly delivered HTTP resource.

67. A communication system, comprising:

means for associating a collection of related source objects with a source flow; and

means for transmitting source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over a broadcast network so that source objects may be received and recovered by a receiver device based on their relationship to each other.

68. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising:

means for determining a source flow identifier for the source flow; and

means for including the source flow identifier in a packet that includes data of at least one source object in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow.

69. The communication system of claim 68, further comprising:

means for including a byte range in the packet that identifies data of a source object in the packet.

70. The communication system of claim 68, wherein means for including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises means for including the source flow identifier in a transmission session identifier (TSI) field of the packet.

71. The communication system of claim 68, wherein means for including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises means for including the source flow identifier in a combination of an Internet protocol (IP) destination address field and a user datagram protocol (UDP) port number field.

72. The communication system of claim 68, wherein means for including the source flow identifier in the packet comprises means for including the source flow identifier in a codepoint (CP) field of a data packet.

73. The communication system of claim 68, wherein:

means for transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting a plurality of collections of related source objects, each collection being associated with one of a plurality of different source flows, each of the plurality of different source flows including a unique source flow identifier; and

means for including the source flow identifier in the packet that includes data of at least one source object in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow comprises means for including the unique source flow identifier of the source flow in the packet that includes data of that source object.

74. The communication system of claim 73, further comprising a receiver device,

wherein means for transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting at least one packet that includes forward error correction (FEC) repair data, a repair flow identifier, and a repair object identifier, the communication system further comprising:

means for associating a repair flow with one or more of the plurality of different source flows;

means for determining the repair flow identifier for the repair flow; and

means for determining a collection of repair object identifiers for the repair flow; and

wherein the receiver device comprises means for determining, based at least in part on a combination of the repair flow identifier and the repair object identifier of a packet, from which of the source objects from the associated plurality of source flows the FEC repair data included in the packet is generated.

75. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including the repair flow identifier in a transmission session identifier (TSI) field.

76. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including the repair flow identifier in the combination of an Internet protocol (IP) destination address field and a user datagram protocol (UDP) port number field.

77. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including the repair flow identifier in a codepoint (CP) field.

78. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including the repair object identifier in a transmission object identifier (TOI).

79. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including the repair object identifier in an object sequence number (OSN).

80. The communication system of claim 74, wherein means for transmitting at least one packet that includes FEC repair data comprises:

means for transmitting at least one packet that includes FEC repair data in the same time interval as the packet that includes data for a corresponding source object.

81. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising:

means for generating FEC repair data for packets having the same repair flow identifier and same repair object identifier from two source objects in different source flows so that an amount of data received in combination from the packets having the same repair flow identifier and same repair object identifier and from packets containing data for either of the two source objects that is greater than or equal to an aggregate size of the two source objects is sufficient to decode the two source objects.

82. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising means for including portions of the repair flow identifier in different data fields of the packet that includes FEC repair data.

83. The communication system of claim 74, further comprising:

means for determining a repair flow declaration for the repair flow so that the repair flow declaration includes information suitable for signaling a relationship between the repair object identifier in the packet that includes FEC repair data and source objects from the collection of related source objects associated with source flows from which the FEC repair data in the packet is generated.

84. The communication system of claim 83, further comprising:

means for using a template to signal the relationship via the repair flow declaration.

85. The communication system of claim 83, further comprising means for transmitting a portion of the repair flow declaration to the receiver device in advance of at least one source object associated with the source flow associated with the repair flow.

86. The communication system of claim 68, further comprising:

means for determining a source object identifier for each source object in the collection of related source objects; and

means for including the source object identifier in one or more packets that include data for the source objects.

87. The communication system of claim 86, further comprising:

means for using a combination of the source flow identifier and the source object identifier to identify a corresponding source object in the collection of related source objects.

88. The communication system of claim 86, wherein means for including the source object identifier in the packet that includes data comprises:

means for including the source object identifier in the packet so that a combination of the source flow identifier and the source object identifier identifies a corresponding source object for which the packet carries data.

89. The communication system of claim 86, further comprising:

means for setting a transmission object identifier (TOI) as the source object identifier.

90. The communication system of claim 86, further comprising:

means for setting an object sequence number (OSN) as the source object identifier.

91. The communication system of claim 86, further comprising:

means for transmitting forward error correction (FEC) repair data for the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network so that the source objects can be received and recovered by the receiver device based on their relationship to each other,

wherein each packet that includes FEC repair data for one or more of related source objects associated with the source flow includes the source flow identifier identifying the source flow for which the packet includes FEC repair data,

wherein each packet that includes FEC repair data for one or more of the related source objects associated with the source flow carries one or more source object identifiers of one or more source objects from which the FEC repair data carried in the packet is generated, and

wherein a combination of the source flow identifier and one or more source object identifiers identifies one or more source objects from the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow from which the FEC repair data carried in the packet is generated.

92. The communication system of claim 91, further comprising means for transmitting packets carrying FEC repair data generated from the one or more source objects in the same interval of time as packets carrying data for the one or more source objects.

93. The communication system of claim 67, wherein means for transmitting the source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network comprises:

means for transmitting the source objects independent of their corresponding repair objects.

94. The communication system of claim 93, further comprising:

means for using session description protocol (SDP) information to distinguish a source object from its corresponding repair object.

95. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising means for including a byte range of a file in at least one source object in the collection of related source objects.

96. The communication system of claim 95, further comprising means for associating a uniform resource locator (URL) with the file, the communication system further comprising:

means for identifying the at least one source object via the URL and the byte range.

97. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising means for including a file in at least one source object in the collection of related source objects.

98. The communication system of claim 97, further comprising means for associating a uniform resource locator (URL) with the file, the communication system further comprising:

means for identifying the at least one source object via the URL.

99. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising means for including a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header and a byte range of a file in at least one source object in the collection of related source objects.

100. The communication system of claim 99, further comprising means for including an HTTP header, an associated file, and an HTTP trailer in at least some of the source objects.

101. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising:

means for determining a source flow declaration for a collection of source objects associated with the source flow so that the source flow declaration includes information suitable for signaling relationships between a location, name, availability time, or other metadata for the collection of source objects associated with the source flow.

102. The communication system of claim 67, wherein means for transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting the collection of related source objects via multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS).

103. The communication system of claim 67, wherein means for transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting the collection of related source objects via file delivery over unidirectional transport (FLUTE).

104. The communication system of claim 67, wherein means for transmitting the collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting the source objects without transmitting forward error correction (FEC) signaling information.

105. The communication system of claim 67, further comprising means for including a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header and a byte range of a file in at least some of the source objects.

106. A communication system, comprising:

means for receiving portions of an entire file;

means for generating source objects based on the received portions prior to receiving the entire file; and

means for transmitting the generated source objects to a receiver device prior to receiving the entire file.

107. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises:

means for transmitting data for the generated source objects in a different order than a data order of the entire file.

108. The communication system of claim 107, wherein:

means for receiving portions of the entire file comprises means for receiving portions of a file that includes a file size at the beginning of the file; and

means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises means for transmitting data of a source object in an order such that at least some data of the file after the file size is transmitted before the file size.

109. The communication system of claim 106, further comprising means for including a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header and an associated file in a source object.

110. The communication system of claim 106, further comprising means for including a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header, an associated file and an HTTP trailer in a source object.

111. The communication system of claim 106, further comprising means for determining a source flow declaration for a collection of source objects associated with a source flow so that the source flow declaration signals relationships between a location, name, availability time, or other metadata for the collection of source objects associated with the source flow.

112. The communication system of claim 111, further comprising:

means for using a template to signal relationship information in the source flow declaration.

113. The communication system of claim 111, further comprising:

means for transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow.

114. The communication system of claim 113, wherein means for transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow comprises means for transmitting a portion that includes at least one of:

timing information;

uniform resource identifier (URI); and

information identifying decryption keys for source objects.

115. The communication system of claim 113, wherein means for transmitting portions of the source flow declaration for the source flow to the receiver device in advance of at least one related source object associated with the source flow comprises:

means for sending a portion of the source flow declaration out-of-band to the receiver device in advance of transmitting at least one of the source objects associated with the source flow; and

means for sending another portion of the source flow declaration in-band with a source object.

116. The communication system of claim 115, wherein means for sending another portion of the source flow declaration in-band with the source object comprises means for sending an indication of a last portion of data for the source object.

117. The communication system of claim 113, wherein means for providing portions of the source flow declaration to the receiver device comprises means for sending portions of the source flow declaration via a unidirectional transport protocol without sending a file delivery table.

118. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises means for transmitting a collection of related source objects via multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS).

119. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises means for transmitting a collection of related source objects via file delivery over unidirectional transport (FLUTE).

120. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting a collection of related source objects comprises means for transmitting the source objects independent of their corresponding repair objects.

121. The communication system of claim 106, further comprising means for using session description protocol (SDP) information to distinguish a source object from its corresponding repair object.

122. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises means for transmitting the source objects without transmitting forward error correction (FEC) signaling information.

123. The communication system of claim 106, further comprising:

means for performing forward error correction (FEC) operations to protect portions of an individual source object.

124. The communication system of claim 123, further comprising:

means for transmitting the individual source object with multiple FEC encodings.

125. The communication system of claim 123, further comprising:

means for adding a transmission object identifier (TOI) or object sequence number (OSN) for a protected portion of a source object in a repair packet header; and

means for adding a byte range of the protected portion at an end of its transport source block.

126. The communication system of claim 123, further comprising:

means for adding source symbols at the beginning of a portion of a source object to be protected; and

means for adding a byte range of a protected portion in a repair packet header.

127. The communication system of claim 123, further comprising:

means for adding a starting position of a byte range of a protected portion of a source object and a number of symbols that are covered by the byte range within a repair packet header; and

means for adding a size of the protected portion in bytes or octets at an end of a transport source block.

128. The communication system of claim 106, wherein means for transmitting the generated source objects to the receiver device prior to receiving the entire file comprises:

means for delivering a source object to the receiver device via a unidirectional protocol as a combination of a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) entity header and an HTTP entity body so that the source object is suitable for use in the receiver device as a regularly delivered HTTP resource.

129. A communication system, comprising:

a transmitter; and

a computing device coupled to the transmitter and configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising;

associating a collection of related source objects with a source flow; and

transmitting the source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over a broadcast network so that the source objects may be received and recovered by a receiver device based on their relationship to each other.

130. A communication system, comprising:

a transmitter; and

a computing device coupled to the transmitter and configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising;

receiving portions of an entire file;

generating source objects based on the received portions prior to receiving the entire file; and

transmitting the generated source objects to a receiver device prior to receiving the entire file.

131. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon processor-executable software instructions configured to cause a computing device within a communication system to perform operations for communicating information via a broadcast network, the operations comprising:

associating a collection of related source objects with a source flow; and

transmitting the source objects in the collection of related source objects associated with the source flow over the broadcast network so that the source objects may be received and recovered by a receiver device based on their relationship to each other.

132. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon processor-executable software instructions configured to cause a computing device within a communication system to perform operations for transmitting one or more source objects over a broadcast network, the operations comprising:

receiving portions of an entire file;

generating source objects based on the received portions prior to receiving the entire file; and

transmitting the generated source objects to a receiver device prior to receiving the entire file.