Method and system for enhancing live stream delivery quality using prebursting

• US 8,135,855 B2
• Filed: 01/17/2011
• Issued: 03/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Sitaraman, Ramesh K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Barot, Bharat
• Application Number:
  US13/007,696
• Publication Number:
  US 20110113152A1
• Time in Patent Office: 421 Days
• Field of Search: 709213-219, 709225-233, 370466-469
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• 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 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

The subject matter herein relates to a method to “accelerate” the delivery of a portion of a data stream across nodes of a stream transport network. A portion of a live stream is forwarded from a first node to a second node in a transport network at a high bitrate as compared to the stream'"'"'s encoded bitrate, and thereafter, the stream continues to be forwarded from the first node to the second node at or near the encoded bitrate. The disclosed technique of forwarding a portion of a stream at a high bitrate as compared to the encoded bitrate of the stream is sometimes referred to as “prebursting” the stream. This technique provides significant advantages in that it reduces stream startup time, reduces unrecoverable stream packet loss, and reduces stream rebuffers as the stream is viewed by a requesting end user that has been mapped to a media server in a distributed computer network such as a content delivery network.

Claims

1. Edge node apparatus operative in a transport network having a set of edge nodes to which requesting end users are directed to obtain a live data stream, comprising:

a processor;

computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to perform a method, comprising;

receiving a burst portion of the live stream from a first node, the burst portion received at a rate that is higher than an encoded bitrate of the live stream, the burst portion representing an amount of the live stream stored at the first node during a given time period;

after the burst portion of the live stream is received from the first node, receiving a second portion of the live stream from the first node, the second portion received at the encoded bitrate of the live stream; and

ignoring portions of the live stream other than a burst portion until data associated with the burst portion begins to be received or expiration of a time period during which data associated with the burst portion has not begun to be received.

2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the burst portion of the live stream is configurable.

3. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the rate at which the given portion is received from the first node is a given multiple of the encoded bitrate of the live stream.

4. The apparatus as described in claim 3 wherein the rate is configurable.

5. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the method further includes issuing a subscription request to the first node.