SOFTWARE-DEFINED MEDIA PLATFORM

• US 20150113100A1
• Filed: 10/09/2014
• Published: 04/23/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Tweedale, Paul, Wu, Chin-Cheng, Ng, Tung, Shearer, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 10,440,080 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64738 Monitoring network characteristics, e.g. bandwidth, congestion level data switched network analysis H04L41/14; monitoring functioning in data switched networks H04L43/0817; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64761 directed to the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64769 for rate control flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A software-defined media platform having one or more media processing units that may be dynamically instantiated, interconnected and configured according to changes in demand, resource availability, and other parameters affecting system performance relative to demand. In one example media processing method, a source media stream may be received via multicast or unicast. The source media stream may be processed into one or more levels of work product segments having different media characteristics by a plurality of transcoding processing units, as needed. One or more levels of work product segments, or the source media stream, may be packaged (e.g., including resegmenting) into final work product segments having select media characteristics, which may be uploaded to a cloud storage unit for delivery to end users.

Claims

1. A software-defined media platform having distributed computer hardware including processing circuitry for executing computer program instructions, memory and interconnect for storing and transferring data during processing, and interface circuitry coupling the computer hardware to external devices and sub-systems including one or more data communication networks, the memory storing a plurality of software modules executed by the distributed computer hardware to form corresponding media processing units including one or more transcoder processing units and one or more packager processing units, each transcoder processing unit including at least a recorder, decoder, encoder, segmenter and uploader for (a) receiving and decoding an input media stream, (b) encoding and segmenting the media stream into segments, and (c) uploading the segments to a content delivery network, each packager processing unit including at least a recorder, segmenter and uploader for (a) retrieving input segments of source media, (b) re-segmenting the retrieved segments to generate output segments to be delivered to an end consumer, and (c) uploading the output segments to an external content delivery network accessible by the end consumer to obtain the output segments therefrom for playback of the media stream, the software-defined media platform further including a system manager subsystem operative to dynamically instantiate and configure the media processing units and respective connections therebetween to adapt operation according to changes in demand, resource availability, and other parameters affecting system performance relative to demand.

2. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the output segments are compliant with at least one of Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG) Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) specification, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) specification, Silverlight®

Smooth Streaming specification and HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) specification.

3. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more transcoder processing units are implemented in one of a custom hardware implementation, a software implementation, a single-rooted input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) arrangement and a multi-rooted input/output virtualization (MR-IOV) arrangement.

4. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more packager processing units are implemented in one of a custom hardware implementation, a software implementation, a single-rooted input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) arrangement and a multi-rooted input/output virtualization (MR-IOV) arrangement.

5. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the packager processing units is configured to operate in a master mode, with remaining packager processing units being configured to operate in a slave or autonomous mode.

6. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more transcoder processing units are disposed in a cloud network.

7. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more packager processing units are disposed in a cloud network.

8. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more transcoder processing units are disposed in a local hardware media platform.

9. The software-defined media platform as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more packager processing units are disposed in a local hardware media platform.

10. A media processing system operative to process a source media stream into final work product segments for delivery to one or more end users, the system comprising:

an input processing unit configured to segment the source media stream into a stream of base work product segments, wherein each base work product segment has a select time duration and is transcoded to have a base bitrate;

a cascading network of a plurality of transcoding processing units, wherein a transcoding processing unit is operative to (i) process the base work product segments into a first level intermediary work product segment stream, or (ii) process an i^th level intermediary work product segment stream into an (i+1)^th level intermediary work product stream such that the i^th level intermediate work product segments have a bitrate that is higher than the (i+1)^th level intermediary work product segments;

one or more packager processing units configured to process one or more of the base work product segment stream and intermediary work product segment streams into the final work product segments having multiple bitrates and segment sizes;

one or more cloud storage service units operatively coupled to the input processing unit, plurality of transcoding processing units and the one or more package processing unit for facilitating storage and transport of the stream of base work product segments and one or more intermediary work product segment streams; and

an orchestration and resource management unit operative to dynamically instantiate and configure the input processing unit, plurality of transcoding processing units and the one or more package processing units and respective connections therebetween via the one or more cloud storage service units to adapt processing of the source media stream responsive to one or more configuration triggers.

11. The media processing system as recited in claim 10, wherein at least one of the input processing unit, plurality of transcoding processing units and the package processing unit is disposed in a cloud network.

12. The media processing system as recited in claim 10, wherein at least one of the input processing unit, plurality of transcoding processing units and the package processing units is disposed in a local hardware media platform.

13. The media processing system as recited in claim 10, wherein one of the packager processing units is configured to operate in a master mode, with remaining packager processing units being configured to operate in a slave or autonomous mode.

14. The media processing system as recited in claim 13, wherein the master mode packager processing unit is operative to synchronize segment sizes, facilitate frame alignment, provide appropriate timing information, and generate manifest files for the final work product segments.

15. The media processing system as recited in claim 13, wherein the master mode packager processing unit is operative to upload the final work product segments and associated manifest files to a cloud delivery network accessible to the one or more end users.

16. The media processing system as recited in claim 10, wherein the one or more configuration triggers are generated responsive to at least one of:

(i) network analytics relative to the delivery of the final work product segment streams to the end users, (ii) service operator-initiated alarms, (iii) hardware or software failures, (iv) an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) containing scheduling information of the source media stream in a geographical area.

17. A media processing method for processing a source media stream into final work product segments for delivery to one or more end users, the method comprising:

receiving the source media stream;

processing the source media stream into one or more levels of work product segments having different media characteristics by a plurality of transcoding processing units; and

packaging the one or more levels of work product segments into the final work product segments having select media characteristics and uploading the final work product segments by one or more packager processing units for delivery to the one or more end users, wherein the plurality of transcoding processing units and one or more packager units are dynamically instantiated and configured responsive to one or more configuration triggers.

18. The media processing method as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

determining if the source media stream is segmented and encoded at a bitrate acceptable for delivery;

if so, avoiding processing the source media stream into multiple levels of work product segments; and

packaging the source media stream into the final work product segments and uploading for delivery to the one or more end users.

19. The media processing method as recited in claim 17, wherein the select media characteristics comprise at least one of multiple encoding bitrates, segment sizes and frame rates.

20. The media processing method as recited in claim 17, wherein the one or more configuration triggers are generated responsive to at least one of:

(i) network analytics relative to the delivery of the final work product segment streams to the end users, (ii) service operator-initiated alarms, (iii) hardware or software failures, (iv) an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) containing scheduling information of the source media stream in a geographical area.