Assisted peer-to-peer media streaming

• US 8,307,024 B2
• Filed: 07/20/2007
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Setton, Eric E., Apostolopoulos, John G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing
• Assistant Examiner(s): Woo, Andrew
• Application Number:
  US11/880,317
• Publication Number:
  US 20090024754A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,936 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/200
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1048 Departure or maintenance mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1085 involving dynamic management of active down- or uploading connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1091 Interfacing with client-server systems or between P2P systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

Assisted peer-to-peer media streaming. A first connection to at least one peer of a peer-to-peer network is initiated for receiving media content from the peer-to-peer network. Responsive to a disruption of delivery of the media content over the first connection from the peer, the media content is received over a second connection with a data source, wherein the data source comprises the media content.

Claims

1. A method for assisted peer-to-peer media streaming, said method comprising:

receiving a list of potential peer candidates from a peer device;

directly initiating a first connection to at least one peer of a peer-to-peer network for receiving media content from said peer-to-peer network, wherein said at least one peer is on said list of potential peer candidates;

responsive to a disruption of delivery of said media content over said first connection from said peer, establishing a second connection to a data source outside of said peer-to-peer network and receiving said media content over said second connection with said data source, wherein said data source comprises said media content and wherein said second connection is initiated directly with said data source, and wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network does not act as a peer, and wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network is a reliable retransmission server that guarantees delivery of missing portions of said media content;

reestablishing said first connection to at least one peer of said peer-to-peer network; and

responsive to said reestablishing said first connection, disconnecting said second connection.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

responsive to said disruption ending such that said media content is received over said first connection, disconnecting said second connection.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said disruption comprises a startup delay in establishing said first connection with said peer-to-peer network, said method further comprising:

responsive to reestablishing said first connection, disconnecting said second connection.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said disruption comprises packet loss over said first connection, wherein said receiving said media content over a second connection further comprises:

receiving at least one missing packet over said second connection.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said data source comprises at least one server.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein said data source comprises a plurality of servers, wherein each server of said plurality of servers comprises at least a portion of said media content.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

responsive to said disruption, requesting portions of media content from said data source.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

predicting future packet loss; and

preemptively requesting media content comprising said future packet loss from said data source.

9. A method for assisted peer-to-peer network connection, said method comprising:

receiving a list of potential peer candidates from a peer device;

directly initiating a first connection to at least one peer of a peer-to-peer network for receiving media content from said peer-to-peer network, wherein said at least one peer is on of said list of potential peer candidates;

concurrent to said initiating said first connection, establishing a second connection with a data source outside of said peer-to-peer network, wherein said data source comprises said media content and wherein said second connection is initiated directly with said data source, wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network does not act as a peer, and wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network is a reliable retransmission server that guarantees delivery of missing portions of said media data;

receiving said media content over said second connection;

reestablishing said first connection to at least one peer of said peer-to-peer network; and

responsive to reestablishing said first connection, disconnecting said second connection.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

establishing said first connection; and

responsive to establishing said first connection, receiving said media content over said first connection.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

disconnecting said second connection such that said media content is received over said first connection.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said second connection comprises a unicast connection to said data source.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein said data source comprises a plurality of servers, wherein each said server of said plurality of servers comprises at least a portion of said media content.

14. One or more computing device non-transitory readable media for storing instructions that when executed by one or more processors perform a method for assisted peer-to-peer network error resilience, said method comprising:

detecting packet loss over a first connection to a peer-to-peer network, said first connection for receiving media data and wherein said first connection is initiated directly with a first peer of said peer-to-peer network wherein said first peer was selected from a list of potential peer candidates received from a peer device; and

responsive to said packet loss, establishing a second connection to a data source outside of said peer-to-peer network and receiving said media data over said second connection to said data source, wherein said data source comprises said media data and wherein said second connection is initiated directly with said data source, wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network does not act as a peer, and wherein said data source outside of said peer-to-peer network is a reliable retransmission server that guarantees delivery of missing portions of said media data;

reestablishing said first connection to said peer-to-peer network; and

responsive to reestablishing said first connection, disconnecting said second connection.

15. The one or more computing device non-transitory readable media as recited in claim 14, wherein said method further comprises:

responsive to said packet loss, establishing said second connection to said data source.

16. The one or more computing device non-transitory readable media as recited in claim 14, wherein said detecting said packet loss over said first connection to said peer-to-peer network comprises:

detecting a peer disconnecting from said peer-to-peer network.

17. The one or more computing device non-transitory readable media as recited in claim 14, wherein said second connection comprises a unicast connection to said data source.

18. The one or more computing device non-transitory readable media as recited in claim 14, wherein said data source comprises a plurality of servers, wherein each said server of said plurality of servers comprises at least a portion of said media data.