Emulation of streaming over the internet in a broadcast application

• US 6,697,869 B1
• Filed: 08/24/1998
• Issued: 02/24/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Mallart, Raoul, Sinha, Atul
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne, Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): SALAD, ABDULLAHI ELMI
• Application Number:
  US09/138,782
• Time in Patent Office: 2,010 Days
• Field of Search: 709/231, 709/204, 709/232, 709/233, 709/205, 709/206, 345/473
• US Class Current: 709/231
• 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 13/65 automatically by game devices or servers from real world data, e.g. measurement in live racing competition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/803 Driving vehicles or craft, e.g. cars, airplanes, ships, robots or tanks
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/402 Communication between platforms, i.e. physical link to protocol
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8017 Driving on land or water; Flying
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8082 Virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/27 involving both synthetic and natural picture components, e.g. synthetic natural hybrid coding [SNHC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/24 Systems for the transmission of television signals using pulse code modulation H04N21/00 takes precedence

Abstract

In a broadcast application on a client-server network the streaming is emulated of animation data over the Internet to a large number of clients. The animation is considered a sequence of states. State information is sent to the clients instead of the graphics data itself. The clients generate the animation data itself under control of the state information. The server and clients communicate using a shared object protocol. Thus, streaming is accomplished as well as a broadcast without running into severe network bandwidth problems.

Claims

1. A method of emulating streaming a multimedia file via a network, comprising:

providing a first world model to a first station, and a second world model to a second station, the first station having at least a source encoder and a channel encoder coupled to the first world model, and the second station having at least a channel decoder and a source decoder coupled to the second world model;

streaming data to the source encoder of the first station;

generating state information based upon the data streamed to the source encoder;

updating at least one state of the first world model;

monitoring and encoding state changes in the first world model;

transmitting encoded state changes to the second station;

decoding, at the second station, the encoded state changes and updating the second world model; and

generating animation based on the decoded state changes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising managing a scene graph at the second station according to the animation.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising performing state interpolation.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising performing state extrapolation.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising rendering the second world model.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising rendering the first world model and the second world model wherein the appearance of each of the renderings is not identical, and wherein corresponding shared objects in the first world model and the second world model share state changes.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising locally providing state information to the second station, wherein the locally provided state information is not shared with the first station, and wherein play-out of the second world model is controlled, based at least in part, on the locally provided state information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the locally provided stat information comprises point of view.

9. A method of emulating streaming a multimedia file via a network, comprising:

providing a first world model to a first station, and a second world model to a second station, the first station having at least a source encoder and a channel encoder coupled to the first world model, and the second station having at least a channel decoder and a source transcoder coupled to the second world model, and a channel encoder coupled to the source transcoder;

streaming data to the source encoder of the first station;

generating state information based upon the data streamed to the source encoder;

updating at least one state of the first world model;

monitoring and encoding state changes in the first world model;

transmitting encoded state changes to the second station;

decoding, at the second station, the encoded state changes and updating the second world model;

generating animation data based on the decoded state changes; and

encoding the animation data and transmitting the encoded animation data to a third station.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the animation data is encoded into BIFS-Anim format and transmitted to an MPEG-4 client.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising performing packet loss recovery.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein performing packet loss recovery consists of performing one or more of interpolation, extrapolation, dead reckoning, and local animation.