Bandwidth reduction of on-demand streaming data using flexible merger hierarchies
First Claim
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1. A method of transmitting streaming data, comprising the steps of:
- (a) starting an original transmission of a program;
(b) after step (a), scheduling a requested transmission of the program in response to a client request;
(c) selecting a target transmission that is farther along in the program than the requested transmission as a merge target for the requested transmission;
(d) receiving at the client a composite of the requested transmission and data of the target transmission; and
(e) after step (d), merging the requested transmission and target transmission to provide a merged transmission; and
(f) after step (e), merging the merged transmission with the original transmission.
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Abstract
A method of efficiently transmitting streamed data of a program to multiple clients requesting the program at different times ranks the requests in a multilevel hierarchy, which describes merging of data streams servicing the requests. The multilevel hierarchy changes dynamically as new requests arrive or existing data streams are merged to reduce the bandwidth or other costs required to serve the requests. The hierarchy may be established by simple rules or by a modeling of the actual cost of possible hierarchies.
115 Citations
27 Claims
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1. A method of transmitting streaming data, comprising the steps of:
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(a) starting an original transmission of a program;
(b) after step (a), scheduling a requested transmission of the program in response to a client request;
(c) selecting a target transmission that is farther along in the program than the requested transmission as a merge target for the requested transmission;
(d) receiving at the client a composite of the requested transmission and data of the target transmission; and
(e) after step (d), merging the requested transmission and target transmission to provide a merged transmission; and
(f) after step (e), merging the merged transmission with the original transmission. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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16. A method of transmitting a streaming data on-demand comprising the steps of:
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(a) receiving at different times to requests for transmission of the streaming data from clients i;
(b) beginning i transmissions of the streaming data to the i clients;
(c) grouping the i transmissions into merge hierarchies defining merger of the transmissions of the streaming data to reduce the total transmission cost;
(d) receiving at a time ti+1 subsequent to the times ti a request for transmission of the streaming data from client i+1; and
(e) changing the grouping of the merge hierarchies in response to the receipt of the request from client i+1. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 25)
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20. A method of transmitting streaming data, on-demand, comprising the steps of:
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(a) scheduling a requested transmission stream in response to a request of a client;
(b) selecting an earlier transmission stream as a merge target for the requested transmission stream so that the client receives both the requested transmission stream and the earlier transmission stream and so that the requested transmission stream could merge at a merger time with the earlier transmission stream; and
(c) subsequent to step (b), and prior to the merge time, changing the merge time. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27)
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Specification