Apparatus and method for aggregating disparate storage on consumer electronics devices

• US 8,069,255 B2
• Filed: 06/18/2003
• Issued: 11/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Grannan, Michael F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair; Douglas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Fritz; Bradford F
• Application Number:
  US10/464,412
• Publication Number:
  US 20050010671A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,086 Days
• Field of Search: 709/229, 709/211, 709/226, 709203-205, 709/223, 726/26, 726/31
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2812 describing content present in a home automation network, e.g. audio video content retrieval from the Internet G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles

Abstract

A media management module maintains and uses device profile data stored on a computer-readable medium. The device profile data includes, for each of at least one device in a user premise, a respective first data element to indicate whether a device is to remain in or be removable from the user premise, and a respective second data element to indicate whether a memory associated with the device is resident or removable from the device.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a media management server module on a computer-readable storage medium, the media management server module to;

provide residential gateway functions that include home networking;

receive device characteristics of a first device of a plurality of devices in a user premises, the device characteristics including a size of a memory associated with the first device, an allocation status of the memory, a first indicator to indicate whether the memory is removable, and a second indicator to indicate whether the first device is portable;

maintain device profile data for each of the plurality of devices, the device profile data including an indication of available memory for each of the plurality of devices;

manage storage of media assets across aggregate available memory of the plurality of devices based on the device profile data of each of the plurality of devices;

receive a request from a requesting device to store a media file;

determine a smallest memory block of the available memory for each of the plurality of devices;

when the smallest memory block is greater than or equal to a size of the media file, store the media file at the smallest memory block;

when the smallest memory block is less than the size of the media file, identify blocks of the available memory, break the media file into pieces, and store the pieces in the identified blocks via a linked list structure;

generate a first warning when the media file is to be stored on a removable device based on a first data element in the device profile data that indicates whether the requesting device is removable; and

generate a second warning when the media file is to be stored on a device having removable storage based on a second data element in the device profile data that indicates whether the requesting device includes the removable storage.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising media asset data stored by the computer-readable storage medium, the media asset data associated with the media assets.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the media management server module and the computer-readable storage medium are included in a computing device having a processor, a main memory, secondary storage, and a home network interface.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the media asset data comprises, for each of the media assets, a respective first data element to uniquely identify the media asset, a respective second data element to indicate a title of the media asset, a respective third data element to indicate a category of the media asset, a respective fourth data element to indicate a media type of the media asset, a respective fifth data element to indicate a distribution source of the media asset, a respective sixth data element to identify the device where the media asset is stored, and a respective seventh data element to identify a base address where the media asset is stored in a memory of the device.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the computing device comprises a set top box device.

6. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the computing device includes a digital subscriber line modem.

7. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the computing device comprises a set top box to receive at least one of satellite television services and cable television services.

8. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the home network interface comprises at least one of an ethernet interface, a universal serial bus interface, a power line networking interface, an 802.11 wireless interface, and an ultra wideband interface.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the media management server module configures itself as a slave module for redundancy after detecting a presence of an existing media management server module in another one of the plurality of devices.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the media management server module manages data replication across multiple devices of the plurality of devices to ensure that identical pieces of data are stored on different devices for redundancy.

11. An apparatus comprising:

a device having a memory; and

a media management client module in the device, the media management client module to;

provide a user option to initialize a media management memory feature by broadcasting a message over a home network in a user premises to query for an existence of a media management server device that includes a broadband modem and that provides residential gateway functions that include home networking; and

when the media management server device is located, send to the media management server device characteristics of the device including a size of the memory, an allocation status of the memory, a first indicator to indicate whether the memory is removable, and a second indicator to indicate whether the device is portable, and an indication of available memory in the memory of the device to be aggregated by the media management server device with available memory of at least one second device for storage of media assets across aggregated available memory of the device and the at least one second device;

wherein the media management server device is to receive a request from a requesting device to store a media file, to determine a smallest memory block of the available memory of the device and the at least one second device, to store the media file at the smallest memory block when the smallest memory block is greater than or equal to a size of the media file, when the smallest memory block is less than the size of the media file the media management server device to identify blocks of the available memory, to break the media file into pieces, and to store the pieces in the identified blocks via a linked list structure, the media management server device to generate a first warning when the media file is to be stored on a removable device based on device profile data that indicates whether the requesting device is a removable device, and wherein the media management server device is to generate a second warning when the media file is to be stored on a device with removable storage based on device profile data that indicates whether the requesting device includes removable storage.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein after initialization, the media management client module is to send subsequent requests to store media files to the media management server device.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the media management client module is pre-installed on the device.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the device comprises a digital camera.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the device comprises a music player.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the device comprises a set top box to receive at least one of satellite television services and cable television services.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein to initialize the media management memory feature, the media management client module is further to send a third data element to indicate a device type of the device.

18. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein to initialize the media management memory feature, the media management client module is further to send a third data element to indicate at least one type of media that is playable by the device.

19. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein to initialize the media management memory feature, the media management client module is further to send a third data element to indicate a first free memory location of the device.

20. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein to initialize the media management memory feature, the media management client module is further to send at least one data element to indicate an available memory range of the device.

21. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the media management client module is further to assign a lesser priority to a first request for storage from a first device that is removable from the home network, when a second request for storage arrives from a second device that is to remain in the home network.

22. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the media management client module is to request that the media management server device retrieve one of the media files for playback by the device.