Adaptable bitstream video delivery system

• US 6,490,320 B1
• Filed: 04/11/2000
• Issued: 12/03/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 02/02/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)
• Inventors: Vetro, Anthony, Sun, Huifang, Divakaran, Ajay
• Primary Examiner(s): BRITTON, HOWARD W
• Application Number:
  US09/546,717
• Time in Patent Office: 966 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N.726, H04/N.752, 375/240.08, 375/240.1, 375/240.12, 382/243, 707/514
• US Class Current: 375/240.08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• 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 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/126 Details of normalisation or weighting functions, e.g. normalisation matrices or variable uniform quantisers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/147 according to rate distortion criteria rate-distortion as a criterion for motion estimation H04N19/567
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/179 the unit being a scene or a shot
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/19 using optimisation based on Lagrange multipliers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/20 : using video object coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/25 : with scene description coding, e.g. binary format for scenes [BIFS] compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/29 : involving scalability at the object level, e.g. video object layer [VOL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/33 : in the spatial domain
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 : using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/436 : using parallelised computational arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/587 : involving temporal sub-sampling or interpolation, e.g. decimation or subsequent interpolation of pictures in a video sequence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 : in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 : involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2343 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 : by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 : Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25825 : involving client display capabilities, e.g. screen resolution of a mobile phone optimising the visualisation of content during browsing in the Internet G06F16/9577; processing of terminal status or physical abilities in wireless networks H04W8/22; authentication in wireless network security H04W12/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25833 : involving client hardware characteristics, e.g. manufacturer, processing or storage capabilities allocation of resources considering hardware capabilities in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/5044; allocation of resources considering software capabilities in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/5055
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 : Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 : Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

In an apparatus for transcoding a compressed video, a generator simulates constraints of a network and constraints of a user device. A classifier is coupled to receive an input compressed video and the constraints. The classifier generates content information from features of the input compressed video. A manager produces a plurality of conversions modes dependent the constraints and content information, and a transcoder produces output compressed videos, one for each of the plurality conversion modes.

Claims

1. An apparatus for transcoding a compressed video, comprising:

a generator configured to simulate a plurality of constraints of a network and constraints of a user device;

a classifier, coupled to receive an input compressed video and the plurality of constraints, configured to generate content information from features of the input compressed video;

a manager, coupled to the classifier and the generator, configured to produce a plurality of conversions modes dependent the constraints and content information; and

a transcoder, coupled to the classifier and the manger, configured to produce a plurality of output compressed videos, one for each of the plurality conversion modes.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the content of compressed video is selected from the group consisting of visual, audio, textual, natural, synthetic, primitive, compound data, and combinations thereof.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a database for storing the input compressed video and the plurality of output compressed videos.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

an instantiator, coupled to the manger, configured to generate a descriptor scheme for each of the plurality of output compressed videos.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

a selector, coupled to the network and the database, configured to a select a particular one of the output compressed videos in response to a request.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the of plurality of output compressed videos include CBR bit streams and VBR bit streams.

7. The apparatus of claim 4 further comprising:

means for partitioning the compressed video into a plurality of hierarchical levels;

a feature extractor configured to extract features from each of the plurality of hierarchical level, the features to be combined with each of the descriptor schemes.

8. A method for transcoding a compressed video, comprising the steps of:

simulating a plurality of constraints of a network and constraints of a user device;

generating content information from features of an input compressed video;

producing a plurality of conversions modes dependent the constraints and content information;

producing an output compressed video for each of the plurality conversion modes.