Systems for unifying heterogeneous multimedia tuners

• US 7,380,264 B2
• Filed: 08/13/2004
• Issued: 05/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Potrebic, Peter J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Saltarelli; Dominic D
• Application Number:
  US10/918,010
• Publication Number:
  US 20060035610A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,383 Days
• Field of Search: 725/74, 725/78, 725/80, 725/86
• US Class Current: 725/74
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/18 Arrangements characterised by circuits or components specially adapted for receiving
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4263 involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10

Abstract

A system for unifying heterogeneous multimedia tuners. The system produces a unified channel lineup and coordinates multiple diverse tuners to perform multimedia tasks associated with the unified lineup. In one implementation, tuner allocation policy allows behind-the-scenes tuner assignment and on-the-fly tuner swapping so that the user experience is seamless, access quality is continuously optimized, and tuners with the most bandwidth are kept available.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying multiple tuners for accessing multimedia channels, wherein at least one of the tuners is capable of uniquely accessing one or more of the multimedia channels;

creating a unified lineup of the multimedia channels;

dynamically assigning the tuners to fulfill access requests for viewing and/or recording multimedia content of the multimedia channels in the unified lineup according to one or more policies;

creating a list of viewing tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed viewing tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

creating a list of recording tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed recording tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

in response to access requests for viewing and/or recording the multimedia content, dynamically assigning tuners from the list of viewing tuners and from the list of recording tuners according to the one or more policies and swapping an assigned tuner as needed to fulfill the one or more policies; and

wherein the list of viewing tuners;

relates each channel in the unified lineup to the viewing tuners that are capable of accessing the channel,

prioritizes the viewing tuners according to the access quality that each viewing tuner is capable of providing, and

prioritizes the viewing tuners according to the number of multimedia channels in the unified lineup that each viewing tuner is capable of accessing.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the dynamically assigning includes swapping tuners during an access of the multimedia content to uphold the one or more policies.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said at least one of the tuners has unique access to a multimedia content.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said at least one of the tuners has a capability of providing a unique access quality.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more policies include, in response to one of the access requests, assigning a tuner to the access request that delivers higher quality over assigning a tuner that delivers lower quality.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the multimedia channels deliver one of audio content, video content, or data content.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more policies include, in response to one of the access requests, assigning a tuner that is capable of accessing a lesser number of channels prior to assigning a tuner that is capable of accessing a greater number of channels, if the tuner that is capable of accessing a lesser number of channels is capable of fulfilling the access request.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more policies include designating a primary viewing tuner and a primary recording tuner to be assigned first, if available, to respective viewing and recording tasks.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising dynamically swapping an assigned tuner to fulfill the one or more policies.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising classifying a relationship between a first tuner and a second tuner of the identified tuners and determining the one or more policies based on the classifying.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the relationship comprises mutual exclusivity between a first set of channels tuned by the first tuner and a second set of channels tuned by the second tuner.

12. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the relationship includes an identity of channels tunable by the first and second tuners, wherein the first and second tuners access the identical channels at different levels of access quality.

13. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein the classifying comprises determining a relationship between a first tuner that accesses a set of channels and a second tuner that accesses a subset of the set of channels.

14. The method as recited in claim 10, further comprising determining a relationship between the first and second tuners based on both a difference in channels accessed by the first and second tuners and a difference in access quality provided by the first and second tuners.

15. A method, comprising:

identifying multiple tuners for accessing multimedia channels, wherein at least one of the tuners is capable of uniquely accessing one or more of the multimedia channels;

creating a unified lineup of the multimedia channels;

dynamically assigning the tuners to fulfill access requests for viewing and/or recording multimedia content of the multimedia channels in the unified lineup according to one or more policies;

creating a list of viewing tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed viewing tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

creating a list of recording tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed recording tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

in response to access requests for viewing and/or recording the multimedia content, dynamically assigning tuners from the list of viewing tuners and from the list of recording tuners according to the one or more policies and swapping an assigned tuner as needed to fulfill the one or more policies; and

wherein the list of recording tuners;

relates each channel in the unified lineup to the recording tuners that are capable of accessing the channel,

prioritizes the recording tuners according to the access quality that each recording tuner is capable of providing, and

prioritizes the recording tuners according to the number of multimedia channels in the unified lineup that each recording tuner is capable of accessing.

16. A tuner integration engine, comprising:

a lineup integrator to unify heterogeneous channel lineups associated with multiple tuners into a unified channel lineup;

a tuner prioritizer to sort the multiple tuners according to one or more abilities; and

a tuner assignment engine to assign one of the tuners to a multimedia task according to a policy;

wherein the tuner prioritizer further includes;

a lineup comparator to prioritize tuners according to the number of channels that each tuner can access;

a channel-to-tuner correlator to associate each prioritized tuner with the channels the tuner is capable of accessing; and

a signal quality detector to prioritize tuners according to an access quality provided by each tuner.

17. The tuner integration engine as recited in claim 16, wherein the lineup integrator further includes:

a duplicated channel resolver to map channels duplicated across multiple tuners to a single channel number in the unified channel lineup;

a conflicting channel number resolver to assign channels competing for the same channel number to different channel numbers; and

a channel interleaver to order the channels into the unified channel lineup.

18. The tuner integration engine as recited in claim 16, wherein the tuner assignment engine further includes:

tuner allocation policies to govern assignment of tuners to tasks;

a tuner assignor to match one of the tuners to a multimedia task according to one of the policies; and

a tuner swapper to swap tuners according to one of the policies in response to a request to assign a tuner to a new multimedia task.

19. The tuner integration engine as recited in claim 18, wherein the tuner allocation policies include one of:

presenting a user with a highest available access quality,

favoring higher access quality tuners for assignment to a task over lower access quality tuners,

freeing for a future task the tuners that are capable of accessing a greater number of channels, and

allocating to tasks the tuners that are capable of accessing the least number of channels, if the tuners that access the least number of channels are capable of performing the tasks.

20. The tuner integration engine as recited in claim 16, wherein the tuner assignment engine further has access to a viewing tuner list of prioritized viewing tuners and a recording tuner list of prioritized recording tuners.

21. The tuner integration engine as recited in claim 16, further comprising a configuration classifier to determine a relationship between two or more or the heterogeneous tuners and determine the tuner allocation policies based on the relationship.

22. A system, comprising:

means for identifying heterogeneous tuners for accessing multimedia channels, wherein at least one of the tuners is capable of uniquely accessing one or more of the multimedia channels;

means for creating a unified lineup of channels accessed by the heterogeneous tuners;

means for dynamically assigning the tuners for viewing and/or recording the multimedia channels, according to the one or more policies;

means for creating a list of viewing tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed viewing tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

means for creating a list of recording tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed recording tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

means for dynamically assigning tuners from the list of viewing tuners and from the list of recording tuners according to the one or more policies and swapping an assigned tuner as needed to fulfill the one or more policies, in response to access requests for viewing and/or recording the multimedia content;

means for relating each channel in the unified lineup to the viewing tuners that are capable of accessing the channel,

means for prioritizing the viewing tuners according to the broadcast quality that each viewing tuner is capable of delivering, and

means for prioritizing the viewing tuners according to the number of multimedia channels in the unified lineup that each viewing tuner is capable of accessing.

23. The system as recited in claim 22, wherein the one or more policies optimize access quality for a user experience and conserve bandwidth of the heterogeneous tuners during use of one or more of the tuners.

24. The system as recited in claim 22, further including means for swapping tuners during an access of the multimedia content to uphold the one or more policies.

25. A system, comprising:

means for identifying heterogeneous tuners for accessing multimedia channels, wherein at least one of the tuners is capable of uniquely accessing one or more of the multimedia channels;

means for creating a unified lineup of channels accessed by the heterogeneous tuners;

means for dynamically assigning the tuners for viewing and/or recording the multimedia channels, according to the one or more policies;

means for creating a list of viewing tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed viewing tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies;

means for creating a list of recording tuners selected from the multiple tuners, wherein the listed recording tuners are prioritized according to the one or more policies; and

means for dynamically assigning tuners from the list of viewing tuners and from the list of recording tuners according to the one or more policies and swapping an assigned tuner as needed to fulfill the one or more policies, in response to access requests for viewing and/or recording the multimedia content;

means for relating each channel in the unified lineup to the recording tuners that are capable of accessing the channel,

means for prioritizing the recording tuners according to the broadcast quality that each recording tuner is capable of delivering, and

means for prioritizing the recording tuners according to the number of multimedia channels in the unified lineup that each recording tuner is capable of accessing.