Personal media broadcasting system with output buffer

• US 8,051,454 B2
• Filed: 04/09/2010
• Issued: 11/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sling Media LLC (Dish Network Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sling Media Incorporated (Dish Network Corporation)
• Inventors: Mariappan, Vijayachandran Velliyan, Shah, Bhupendra Natwerial, Krikorian, Jason Gary, Bajpai, Parimal, Krikorian, Blake Gary, Tarra, Raghuveer
• Primary Examiner(s): LONSBERRY, HUNTER B
• Application Number:
  US12/757,697
• Publication Number:
  US 20100191860A1
• Time in Patent Office: 571 Days
• Field of Search: 725 93- 95
• US Class Current: 725/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/80 characterised by transmission among terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/129 at the destination endpoint, e.g. reservation of terminal resources or buffer space
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/107 between spatial and temporal predictive coding, e.g. picture refresh
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/115 Selection of the code volume for a coding unit prior to coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• 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 19/137 Motion inside a coding unit, e.g. average field, frame or block difference
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/14 : Coding unit complexity, e.g. amount of activity or edge presence estimation H04N19/146 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 : by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 : User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 : Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 : the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/182 : the unit being a pixel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/188 : the unit being a video data packet, e.g. a network abstraction layer [NAL] unit
• 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 19/61 : in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/80 : Details of filtering operations specially adapted for video compression, e.g. for pixel interpolation H04N19/635, H04N19/86 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 : using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23406 : involving management of server-side video buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 : being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 : by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 : Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 : Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 : Accessing a communication channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4384 : involving operations to reduce the access time, e.g. fast-tuning for reducing channel switching latency
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4398 : involving reformatting operations of audio signals details of audio signal transcoding G10L19/173
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 : involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440263 : by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for displaying on a connected PDA
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 : for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 : for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 : using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 : Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection

Abstract

A personal media broadcasting system enables video distribution over a computer network and allows a user to view and control media sources over a computer network from a remote location. A personal broadcaster receives an input from one or more types of media sources, digitizes and compresses the content, and streams the compressed media over a computer network to a media player running on any of a wide range of client devices for viewing the media. The system may allow the user to issue control commands (e.g., “channel up”) from the media player to the broadcaster, causing the source device to execute the commands. The broadcaster and the media player may employ several techniques for buffering, transmitting, and viewing the content to improve the user'"'"'s experience.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

a processor configured to receive an audio/video signal and to construct a media stream suitable for transmission over a network from the audio/video signal, wherein the media stream is encoded at a bit rate;

a buffer coupled to receive the media stream, the buffer coupled to the processor for communicating an amount of free space remaining in the buffer, wherein the processor constructs the media stream by encoding the audio/video signal using a bit rate that is dynamically adjusted based on the amount of free space remaining in the buffer; and

a network interface configured to transmit the media stream stored in the buffer to a client over a network.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to increase the bit rate for encoding the audio/video signal if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer remains above a predetermined watermark for a predetermined amount of time.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the bit rate is increased by about 10% if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer remains above a predetermined watermark for a predetermined amount of time.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to decrease the bit rate for encoding the audio/video signal if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below a predetermined watermark.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein the bit rate is decreased by about 15% if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below a predetermined watermark.

6. The device of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to increase the bit rate for encoding the audio/video signal, after having decreased the bit rate, if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer increases above the predetermined watermark.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein a plurality of watermarks are predefined for the buffer, each watermark indicating an amount of free space remaining in the buffer, and wherein the processor is configured to decrease the bit rate for encoding the audio/video signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below one of the watermarks.

8. The device of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to increase the bit rate for encoding the audio/video signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer increases above one of the watermarks.

9. A method executable by a media device for providing media content to a remote client via a network, the method comprising:

receiving an input signal that comprises the media content from an audio/visual source;

constructing a media stream suitable for transmission over the network by encoding the input signal using a bit rate selected at least in part based on an amount of free space remaining in a buffer;

storing the media stream in the buffer prior to transmission; and

transmitting the media stream from the buffer to a remote client over the network.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

increasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer remains above a predetermined watermark for a predetermined amount of time.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

decreasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below a predetermined watermark.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

after decreasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal, increasing the bit rate if the amount of free space remaining in the buffer increases above the predetermined watermark.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein a plurality of watermarks are predefined for the buffer, each watermark indicating an amount of free space remaining in the buffer, the method further comprising:

decreasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below one of the watermarks.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

increasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer increases above one of the watermarks.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the media source is one of the group consisting of a cable television receiver, a direct broadcast satellite television receiver, a terrestrial broadcast television receiver, and a digital video recorder.

16. A method executable by a media device for providing media content to a remote client via a network, the method comprising:

receiving an input signal that comprises the media content from an audio/visual source;

constructing a media stream suitable for transmission over the network by encoding the input signal using a bit rate that is dynamically adjusted based upon a current performance of the media device; and

transmitting the media stream to a remote client over the network.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising storing the media stream in a buffer prior to the transmitting, wherein the media stream is transmitted from the buffer to the remote client, and wherein the media stream is constructed by encoding the input signal using a bit rate that is adjusted to respond to changes in an amount of free space remaining in the buffer.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the bit rate is adjusted without requiring feedback from the client device.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein a plurality of watermarks are predefined for the buffer, each watermark indicating an amount of free space remaining in the buffer, the method further comprising:

decreasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer decreases below one of the watermarks and increasing the bit rate for encoding the input signal each time the amount of free space remaining in the buffer increases above one of the watermarks.

20. The method of claim 16 wherein the bit rate is adjusted without requiring feedback from the client device.