Device, system and method for real-time multimedia streaming

• US 6,085,252 A
• Filed: 12/12/1997
• Issued: 07/04/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhu, Qin-Fan, Eyuboglu, M. Vedat, Sridhar, Manickam R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell, James R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong H.
• Application Number:
  US08/990,173
• Time in Patent Office: 935 Days
• Field of Search: 709/231, 709/230, 370/229, 370/231, 455/18, 455/70, 348/474, 348/723, 348/420
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0002 by adapting the transmission rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1671 the supervisory signal being transmitted together with control information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1809 Selective-repeat protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1854 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1858 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of acknowledgement message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1887 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/189 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of a message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6456 Channel and bandwidth allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6467 Information loss recovery, e.g. error correction, prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/647 Frame Relay, X.25
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6472 Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6475 N-ISDN, Public Switched Telephone Network [PSTN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6481 Speech, voice
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6483 Video, e.g. MPEG
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/6497 Feedback to the source
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/89 : involving methods or arrangements for detection of transmission errors at the decoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/895 : in combination with error concealment
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21 : Server components or server architectures
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23 : Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 : Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6375 : for requesting retransmission , e.g. of data packets lost or corrupted during transmission from serverARQ protocols H04L1/18; implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6377 : directed to server one-way streaming services wherein the source is controlled by the destination H04L65/613
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/643 : Communication protocols network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP], H04L65/65
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/658 : Transmission by the client directed to the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 : Handling of requests in head-ends
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/24 : Systems for the transmission of television signals using pulse code modulation H04N21/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

The present invention provides a device (200, 300), system (400, 500) and method for real-time streaming of a multimedia file stored in a remote server over a packet network to a multimedia client connected to the same network via a low-speed access link such as an analog telephone line. The invention operates to provide significantly improved QoS with respect to both quality and delay.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a server transmitting information in packets across a packet network to a client device, the client device requesting a retransmission attempt of any number of the packets corresponding to a number of the packets lost during the transmission of the information, the retransmission attempt to facilitate processing of the information for a player; and

an error concealment circuit coupled with the client device, the error concealment circuit performing error concealment of any of the information contained in the number of the packets lost if the retransmission attempt fails.

2. A device comprising:

quality of service (QoS) manager coupled to a packet processor receiving information transmitted in packets across a packet network from a server, the QoS determining when a number of packets are lost during transmission and requesting retransmission attempts by the server of the number of the packets lost; and

error concealment circuit coupled to the QoS manager and coupled to an information player, the error concealment circuit performing error concealment of any information contained in the number of packets lost if the retransmission attempt fails, such error concealment displayed with the information on the information player.