Systems and methods for generating a walled garden program for substantially optimized bandwidth delivery

• US 7,533,406 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2002
• Issued: 05/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sandke, Steven R., Zigmond, Daniel J., Ludvig, Edward A., Logue, Jay D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller; John W
• Assistant Examiner(s): PARRY, CHRISTOPHER L
• Application Number:
  US10/262,030
• Publication Number:
  US 20040064836A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,416 Days
• Field of Search: 375/240.08, 37524025-24027, 725/95, 725/113, 725/91, 725/110, 725/114, 725/138, 715730-732
• US Class Current: 725/110
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2381 Adapting the multiplex stream to a specific network, e.g. an Internet Protocol [IP] network transmission of MPEG streams over ATM H04L12/5601
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440227 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440236 by media transcoding, e.g. video is transformed into a slideshow of still pictures, audio is converted into text
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8153 comprising still images, e.g. texture, background image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

Systems and methods for generating a walled garden program for substantially optimized bandwidth delivery are described. In particular, layers of data that are substantially similar across multiple pages of Web content are identified for subsequent reuse during transcoding operations. To this end, the content pages are transcoded into a program that includes multiple video components. The pages are transcoded such that a layer that was determined to be substantially similar across multiple ones of the pages is not encoded into a respective video component for each substantially similar occurrence of the layer. Rather, the layer and all other substantially similar layers are represented in the program with a single still of the video components and interaction model metadata. By reusing similar components, the amount of data used to represent the Web content is reduced, providing for substantially optimized bandwidth delivery to the client.

Claims

1. In a television entertainment system, a method for substantially reducing an amount of bandwidth used to deliver broadcast data, the method comprising:

identifying at a cable head-end, for reuse during transcoding operations at the cable head-end, substantially similar layers across multiple pages of Web content, wherein layers comprise at least one of a plurality of layer types, wherein the plurality of layer types includes at least a background layer type, an image layer type, and a text layer type; and

transcoding, at the cable head-end, the multiple pages of Web content into an interactive program comprising multiple video components, the multiple pages of Web content being transcoded such that a layer that is similar across multiple ones of the pages is not encoded into a respective video component for each similar occurrence of the layer, the layer and all other similar layers being represented in the interactive program with a single still of the video components and metadata;

wherein along a stream of still images, the interactive program includes corresponding metadata, wherein the metadata provides an interaction model for navigating the multiple pages of Web content which have been transcoded into the interactive program comprising multiple video components, the metadata identifies client presentation layout characteristics of the video components, and wherein transcoding further comprises, for a page of the pages;

(a) extracting text from a layer of the lavers;

(b) encoding the text into the metadata; and

(c) rendering the layer as a bitmap that does not include the text; and

wherein the interaction model facilitates interaction via a subscriber terminal without the need for a web browser.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the pages are in a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) data format.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the video components are Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) stills.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein before transcoding, the method further comprises authoring one or more of the pages to indicate individual layers.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein before transcoding, the method further comprises fetching the Web content from an external content provider, and wherein the transcoding is performed by a server at a cable head-end.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein transcoding further comprising encoding multiple video components from a single page of the pages, each of the multiple video components corresponding to a respective page layer.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein multiple pages of the Web content comprise individual instances of substantially similar layers, and wherein transcoding further comprises:

rendering one of the individual instances for only a first page of the multiple pages to generate the single shared video component; and

referencing the single shared video component in metadata corresponding to each other page of the multiple pages that is not the first page.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein transcoding further comprises, for each video component, assigning a temporal reference to indicate a decode order for the client.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising delivering the video components to the client in decode or non-decode order.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein transcoding further comprises:

encoding a background layer as an intra picture;

encoding an image layer of the layers as a predicted picture, the predicted picture being calculated from the intra picture; and

wherein the intra picture and the predicted picture are video components.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the predicted picture is a first predicted picture, and wherein transcoding further comprises encoding a text layer as a second predicted picture, the second predicted picture being based on the first predicted picture, the second predicted picture being a video component of the video components.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein extracting the text further comprises extracting text attributes from the layer, and wherein transcoding further comprises embedding the text attributes into metadata that corresponds to the page.

13. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-program instructions executable by a processor to perform operations as recited in the method of claim 1.

14. A head-end server comprising a processor coupled to a computer-readable medium comprising computer-program instructions executable by the processor, the computer-program instructions performing operations as recited in the method of claim 1.

30. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether a particular background layer has already been rendered such that;

in an event that the particular background layer has not already been rendered, encoding the background layer as an intra picture;

in an event that the particular background layer has already been rendered, generating a reference to the corresponding already rendered background layer intra picture in the metadata of the current page;

determining whether a particular image layer has already been rendered such that;

in an event that the particular image layer has not already been rendered, encoding the image layer as a predicted picture, the predicted picture being calculated from the intra picture;

in an event that the particular image layer has already been rendered, generating a reference to the corresponding already rendered image layer in the metadata of the current page;

determining whether a particular text layer has already been rendered such that;

in an event that the particular text layer has not already been rendered, encoding the image layer as a predicted picture, the predicted picture being calculated from the image layer;

in an event that the particular text layer has already been rendered, generating a reference to the corresponding already rendered text layer in the metadata of the current page; and

wherein the intra picture and each predicted picture are video components.

15. A computer-readable medium having processor-executable instructions embodied thereon, the processor-executable instructions when executed configuring a computer to perform a method comprising:

identifying at a cable head-end, for reuse during transcoding operations at the cable head-end, a plurality of interface pages, individual ones of which have multiple component layers, identifying at least two instances of a substantially similar layer of the multiple component layers, multiple ones of the interface pages having respective instances of the substantially similar layer, wherein layers comprise at least one of a plurality of layer types which include at least a background layer type, an image layer type, and a text layer type; and

transcoding, at the cable head-end, the interface pages into an interactive program comprising multiple video components, the multiple pages of Web content being transcoded such that a layer that is similar across multiple ones of the pages is not encoded into a respective video component for each similar occurrence of the layer, the layer and all other similar layers being represented in the interactive program with a single still of the video components and metadata;

wherein along a stream of still images, the interactive program includes corresponding metadata, wherein the metadata provides an interaction model for navigating the multiple pages of Web content which have been transcoded into the interactive program comprising multiple video components, the metadata identifies client presentation layout characteristics of the video components, and wherein transcoding further comprises, for a page of the pages;

(a) extracting text from a layer of the layers;

(b) encoding the text into the metadata; and

(c) rendering the layer as a bitmap that does not include the text; and

wherein the interaction model facilitates interaction via a subscriber terminal without the need for a web browser.

16. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, wherein transcoding further comprises:

encoding the substantially similar layer for a first one of the multiple ones into the single video component; and

for individual ones of the multiple ones that are not the first one, referencing the single video component in metadata for layer reuse.

17. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, wherein the interactive program is in a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) data format, and wherein the single video still is in an interactive Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) data format.

18. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, before the instructions for identifying, further comprising computer-program instructions for downloading the interface pages from an external Web data source.

19. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, wherein the computer-program instructions further comprise instructions for delivering the interactive program as multiple video components and corresponding interaction model metadata to a client in a television entertainment system, the multiple video components being delivered for receipt by the client in decode or non-decode order.

20. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, wherein the interactive program comprises multiple video components, and wherein the computer-program instructions for transcoding further comprise instructions for:

encoding a background video component as an intra picture;

encoding an image video component as a first predicted picture based on the intra picture; and

encoding a text video component as a second predicted picture based on the first predicted picture.

21. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 15, wherein the computer-program instructions for transcoding further comprise instructions for:

for at least one page of the interface pages;

(a) extracting text; and

(b) encoding the text into metadata for delivery to a client, the text not being represented in the interactive program as a video component.

22. A cable head-end server coupled over a network to an external data source and a client computing device, the server comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-program instructions that are executable by the processor to perform a method comprising;

downloading Web content from the external data source;

identifying for reuse during transcoding operations at the cable head-end server, multiple instances of substantially similar layers of content across multiple pages of the Web content, wherein layers comprise at least one of a plurality of layer types, wherein the plurality of layer types includes at least a background layer type, an image layer type, and a text layer type; and

transcoding the multiple pages of Web content into an interactive program comprising multiple video components, the multiple pages of Web content being transcoded such that a layer that is similar across multiple ones of the pages is not encoded into a respective video component for each similar occurrence of the layer, the layer and all other similar layers being represented in the interactive program with a single still of the video components and metadata wherein the metadata identifies client presentation layout characteristics of the video components, and wherein transcoding further comprises, for a page of the pages;

(a) extracting text from a layer of the layers;

(b) encoding the text into the metadata; and

(c) rendering the layer as a bitmap that does not include the text.

23. A cable head-end server as recited in claim 22, wherein the similar content corresponds to a particular layer of multiple component layers, each page of the multiple pages comprising the multiple component layers.

24. A cable head-end server as recited in claim 22, wherein the similar content is a background layer, an image layer, or a text layer.

25. A cable head-end server as recited in claim 22, wherein the Web content is in a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) data format.

26. A cable head-end server as recited in claim 22, wherein the computer-program instructions further comprise instructions for delivering the multiple video stills to the client in decode or non-decode order, a decode order being specified by the interaction model metadata.

27. A cable head-end server as recited in claim 22, wherein the Web content comprises multiple interface pages each of which consist of multiple component layers, and wherein the computer-program instructions for transcoding the Web content further comprise instructions for:

encoding a background layer of the multiple component layers as an intra picture;

encoding an image layer of the multiple component layers as a first predicted picture that is predicted from the intra picture; and

encoding a text layer of the multiple component layers as a second predicted picture that is predicted from the first predicted picture.

28. A head-end server in a television entertainment infrastructure, the head-end server comprising:

means for downloading Web content comprising a plurality of interface pages, each interface page comprising a plurality of layers, each layer being a particular one type of multiple layer types;

means for identifying for reuse during transcoding operations at the head-end server, substantially similar layers across multiple of the interface pages of Web content, wherein layers comprise at least one of the multiple layer types, wherein the multiple layer types include at least a background layer type, an image layer type, and a text layer type; and

means for transcoding the multiple interface pages of Web content into an interactive program comprising a plurality of video components and metadata, the multiple interface pages of Web content being transcoded such that a layer of the layers that is substantially similar across multiple ones of the interface pages is not encoded into a respective video component for each similar occurrence of the layer, the layer and all other similar layers being represented in the interactive program with a single still of the video components and metadata wherein the metadata identifies client presentation layout characteristics of the video components, and wherein transcoding means further comprises, for a page of the pages;

(a) means for extracting text from a layer of the layers;

(b) means for encoding the text into the metadata; and

(c) means for rendering the layer as a bitmap that does not include the text.

29. A head-end server as recited in claim 28, further comprising broadcasting means for delivering the program in decode or non-decode order to the client.