Qualified Video Delivery Methods

• US 20160080457A1
• Filed: 11/25/2015
• Published: 03/17/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Perry, David, Gault, Andrew Buchanan, Pereira, Rui Filipe Andrade
• Granted Patent: US 10,315,109 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/00 Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions gaming systems which provide a financial reward G07F17/32
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/35 Details of game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/355 Performing operations on behalf of clients with restricted processing capabilities, e.g. servers transform changing game scene into an encoded video stream for transmitting to a mobile phone or a thin client
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/42 by mapping the input signals into game commands, e.g. mapping the displacement of a stylus on a touch screen to the steering angle of a virtual vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/537 using indicators, e.g. showing the condition of a game character on screen
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/71 using secure communication between game devices and game servers, e.g. by encrypting game data or authenticating players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/795 for finding other players; for building a team; for providing a buddy list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/86 Watching games played by other players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/407 Data transfer via internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/51 Server architecture
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/538 for performing operations on behalf of the game client, e.g. rendering
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 : I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 : Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 : Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 : Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 : Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 : for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 : Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 : Responding to QoS
• 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 67/131 : Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 : specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/136 : Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/42 : characterised by implementation details or hardware specially adapted for video compression or decompression, e.g. dedicated software implementation H04N19/635 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/44 : Decoders specially adapted therefor, e.g. video decoders which are asymmetric with respect to the encoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/46 : Embedding additional information in the video signal during the compression process H04N19/517, H04N19/68, H04N19/70 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/70 : characterised by syntax aspects related to video coding, e.g. related to compression standards

Abstract

A video server is configured to provide streaming video to players of computer games over a computing network. The video server can provided video of different games to different players simultaneously. This is accomplished by rendering several video streams in parallel using a single GPU. The output of the GPU is provided to graphics processing pipelines that are each associated with a specific client/player and are dynamically allocated as needed. A client qualifier may be used to assure that only clients capable of presenting the streaming video to a player at a minimum level of quality receive the video stream.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a request from a client computer system to allow a user of the client computer system to play a video game;

testing the client computer system to determine if the client computer system is qualified to receive a streaming video of the video game;

determining a video decoder type present at the client computer system;

selecting a video server system from among a plurality of geographically distributed video server systems to provide streaming video to the client computer system; and

dynamically provisioning an encoding pipeline after determining the video decoder type present at the client computer system, wherein the encoding pipeline is dynamically provisioned to include an encoder that is compatible with the video decoder type present at the client computer system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client computer system from which the request is received is a first client computer system, and wherein the encoding pipeline that is dynamically provisioned to include the encoder that is compatible with the video decoder type present at the first client computer system is a first encoding pipeline, the method further comprising:

receiving a request from a second client computer system to allow a user of the second client computer system to play the video game in conjunction with the user of the first client computer system;

testing the second client computer system to determine if the second client computer system is qualified to receive a streaming video of the video game;

determining a video decoder type present at the second client computer system;

selecting a video server system from among the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems to provide streaming video to the second client computer system; and

dynamically provisioning a second encoding pipeline after determining the video decoder type present at the second client computer system, wherein the second encoding pipeline is dynamically provisioned to include an encoder that is compatible with the video decoder type present at the second client computer system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the video server system selected to provide streaming video to the second client computer system is the same video server system selected to provide streaming video to the first client computer system.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the video server system selected to provide streaming video to the second client computer system is different than the video server system selected to provide streaming video to the first client computer system.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

providing a first video stream to the first client computer system using the first encoding pipeline; and

providing a second video stream to the second client computer system using the second encoding pipeline, wherein the first and second video streams include different video frames.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the video frames of the first and second video streams are produced at the same time using one graphics processing unit.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

provisioning game logic configured to play the video game, in response to receiving the request from the client computer system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the game logic is provisioned after testing the client computer system to determine if the client computer system is qualified to receive the streaming video of the video game.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein testing the client computer system includes testing a display latency between the client computer system and at least one of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein testing the client computer system includes testing a bandwidth between the client computer system and at least one of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting data for display of an interface object to the client computer system, the interface object configured to allow the user of the client computer system to play the video game.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the data for display of the interface object is transmitted to the client computer system after testing the client computer system to determine if the client computer system is qualified to receive the streaming video of the video game.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the data for display of the interface object is transmitted to the client computer system before testing the client computer system to determine if the client computer system is qualified to receive the streaming video of the video game.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

triggering execution of an agent on the client computer system, the agent configured to test the client computer system to determine if the client computer system is qualified to receive a streaming video of the video game.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying multiple encoders that are compatible with the video decoder type present at the client computer system, wherein dynamically provisioning the encoding pipeline includes implementing the multiple encoders for selective use within the encoding pipeline.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

selecting one of the multiple encoders for use within the encoding pipeline at a given time based on performance of a currently operating video decoder at the client computer system.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

providing a video stream to the client computer system using the encoding pipeline;

detecting an adverse condition associated with providing the video stream to the client computer system; and

in response to detecting the adverse condition, selecting a different one of the multiple encoders for use within the encoding pipeline.

18. A method, comprising:

qualifying a client computer system to receive streaming game video from a cloud gaming system, the qualifying including identification of processing characteristics of the client computer system, the qualifying including testing a display latency between the client computer system and the cloud gaming system, the qualifying including comparing results of testing the display latency with minimum requirements for delivery of streaming game video to the client computer system;

upon qualification of the client computer system, executing game logic on virtualized hardware within the cloud gaming system to generate game video data;

processing the game video data through a graphics processing unit (GPU) to produce image data for the game video data;

dynamically provisioning an encoding pipeline after the qualifying based on identified processing characteristics of the client computer system;

processing the image data through an encoder of the encoding pipeline to generate an encoded version of the image data in a video format selected for the client computer system based on the qualifying; and

streaming the encoded version of the image data over a network from the cloud gaming system to the client computer system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the cloud gaming system includes a video server system having virtualized hardware for executing the game logic, the method including selection of the video server system from a plurality of video server systems based on the qualifying of the client computer system.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein qualifying the client computer system to receive streaming game video from the cloud gaming system is based in part on a geographic location of the client computer system, or

wherein selection of the video server system is based on part on the geographic location of the client computer system, or

wherein both qualifying the client to receive streaming game video from the cloud gaming system is based in part on the geographic location of the client computer system, and wherein selection of the video server system is based on part on the geographic location of the client computer system.