Multimedia-aware quality-of-service and error correction provisioning

• US 8,468,426 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2008
• Issued: 06/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Bims, Harry
• Primary Examiner(s): LOHN, JOSHUA A
• Application Number:
  US12/217,308
• Publication Number:
  US 20100002692A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,812 Days
• Field of Search: 714/52, 714/752, 714/774
• US Class Current: 714/774
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0009 by adapting the channel coding H04L1/1812 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0018 based on latency requirement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/302 Route determination based on requested QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/543 based on requested quality, e.g. QoS

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for associating each data packet in a media stream with logic corresponding to a particular quality-of-service (QoS) and/or error correction requirement. In an exemplary embodiment, each packet in the media stream is assigned a frame tag which designates a particular quality-of-service and/or error correction scheme for the corresponding packet. At least a portion of each packet is encoded according to the packet'"'"'s designated quality-of-service as indicated by the frame tag. A receiver accesses the frame tags from within the transmitted media stream in order to determine the appropriate means for processing or decoding the encoded portion of each packet. In this manner, each packet within the media stream can have its own quality-of-service and/or error correction requirements and processing, thereby enhancing link efficiency and better enforcing QoS policy across the system.

Claims

1. For use in a packetized data system, a method of communicating data packets of a plurality of different types, comprising:

assigning at least a portion of the packets to at least one alternate quality-of-service class using capability data relating to an intended device, where the alternate quality-of-service class is different from an originally assigned quality-of-service class associated with the at least portion of packets;

encoding at least a portion of the data packets according to at least one error correction encoding scheme;

assigning a frame tag further indicating a decoding scheme to be used to decode the at least portion of the packets; and

communicating the frame tag to a remote device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communicating comprises transmitting the frame tag to the remote device via a media stream.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the frame tag is comprised within a hint track of the media stream.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said media stream comprises an MP3 media stream, and said at least one quality-of-service class comprises:

(i) an I-frame class;

(ii) a P-frame class; and

(iii) a B-frame class.

5. A method of processing data packets, comprising:

receiving a plurality of packets from a source, where each data packet is assigned a particular quality of service (QoS) profile by the source;

determining to which of a plurality of quality-of-service classes at least a portion of the packets in the plurality belong; and

processing the at least portion of packets according to respective ones of quality-of-service profiles associated with their respective classes;

wherein the at least portion of packets is characterized by a shared application source and a plurality of quality-of-service profiles.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said plurality of data packets comprise a media stream, said media stream comprising a plurality of heterogeneous packet types.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the plurality of heterogeneous packet types are selected from the group consisting of:

P-frames, I-frames, and B-frames.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising including a frame tag within each of the packets of said at least portion, said frame tag designating the respective quality-of-service class of that packet.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising including a frame tag within each of the packets of said at least portion, said frame tag designating the respective packet type.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising including within each of the packets of said at least portion information indicating that a prescribed type of error correction encoding is required.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said receiving a plurality of packets comprises receiving data frames associated with one or more multimedia streams, said streams comprising at least one frame tag identifying a frame type.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said at least one frame tag is disposed substantially within a hint track of said one or more streams.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising using said at least one frame tag to determine which of a plurality of forward error correction decoders to apply to decode at least one of said packets.

14. A method of processing data packets, comprising:

receiving a transmission stream comprising the data packets, at least a portion of the data packets which have been encoded by a first encoding module with an alternate quality-of-service (QoS) class, the alternate QoS class selected according to an application policy determined by an application layer, where the first encoding module is selected by a transmitter based at least in part upon the application policy, and where the alternate QoS class is different from an originally assigned QoS class associated with the portion of data packets;

reading the portion of data packets in order to identify a first decoding module; and

decoding the portion of data packets using the first decoding module.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the reading the portion of data packets in order to identify a first decoding module comprises reading a frame tag.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the frame tag indicates a frame type, the frame type selected from a plurality of heterogeneous types existing within the stream.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the frame type is selected from the group consisting of:

P-frame, I-frame, and B-frame.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the frame tag is included within a hint track of the transmission stream.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the first decoding module comprises a turbo decoder.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the transmission stream comprises at least a second portion of data packets which have been encoded by a second encoding module different than the first encoding module.

21. The method of claim 14, wherein the first encoding module comprises a turbo encoder.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the first encoding module comprises a Reed-Solomon encoder.

23. The method of claim 14, wherein the first encoding module comprises a Viterbi encoder.

24. The method of claim 14, further comprising selecting one of a plurality of QoS profiles to apply to the portion of data packets based at least in part on a frame tag.

25. For use in a wireless network, a computerized device comprising:

a processor;

a storage device in data communication with the processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising one or more instructions that are configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the computerized device to;

select an appropriate forward error correction (FEC) encoder based at least in part on one or more frame tags supplied within one or more hint tracks of a media stream, where the one or more frame tags indicate an encoding scheme to be used to encode at least a portion of the media stream, the encoding scheme different from an originally assigned encoding scheme associated with the portion of the media stream; and

encode at least a portion of the media stream using the selected FEC encoder.

26. The computerized device of claim 25, wherein the computerized device comprises a cellular base station.

27. The computerized device of claim 25, wherein the computerized device comprises a cellular-enabled telephone or smartphone.

28. The computerized device of claim 25, wherein the selected FEC encoder comprises a turbo encoder.

29. The computerized device of claim 25, wherein the one or more instructions are further configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the computerized device to assign ones of packets or frames within the media stream to respective ones of a plurality a quality-of-service (QoS) classes according to information present in the media stream.

30. The computerized device of claim 29, wherein the information present in the media stream comprises the one or more frame tags.

31. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising one or more instructions that are configured to, when executed by a processor:

read at least a portion of an encoded data of a media stream;

select an appropriate forward error correction (FEC) decoder based at least in part on one or more frame tags supplied within the portion, where the one or more frame tags comprise an application policy determined by a shared source to support application layer requirements for the portion of the encoded data of the media stream; and

decode the portion using the selected FEC decoder; and

where the media stream is characterized by the shared source and a plurality of quality-of-service (QoS) profiles.

32. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 31, wherein the one or more frame tags indicate a frame type, the frame type selected from a plurality of heterogeneous types existing within the media stream.

33. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 32, wherein the frame type is selected from the group consisting of P-frame, I-frame, and B-frame.

34. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 33, wherein the one or more frame tags are included within a hint track of the media stream.

35. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 31, wherein the selected FEC decoder comprises a turbo decoder.

36. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 31, wherein the selected FEC decoder comprises a Reed-Solomon decoder.

37. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 31, wherein the selected FEC decoder comprises a Viterbi decoder.

38. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising one or more instructions that are configured to, when executed by a processor:

assign at least a portion of data packets to at least one alternate quality-of-service (QoS) class using capability data that relates to an intended device, where the at least one alternate QoS class is different from an originally assigned QoS class associated with the portion of data packets;

encode the portion of the data packets according to at least one error correction encoding scheme;

assign a frame tag that indicates a decoding scheme to be used to decode the portion of the data packets; and

communicate the frame tag to a remote device.

39. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 38, wherein the frame tag is communicated to the remote device via a media stream.

40. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 39, wherein the frame tag is included within a hint track of the media stream.

41. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 40, wherein the media stream comprises an MP3 media stream, and the at least one QoS class comprises:

(i) an I-frame class;

(ii) a P-frame class; and

(iii) a B-frame class.

42. A wireless apparatus configured to process data packets, comprising:

a processor;

a storage device in data communication with the processor comprising one or more instructions that are configured to, when executed by the processor, cause the wireless apparatus to;

receive a plurality of data packets from a shared application source, where each data packet is assigned a particular quality of service (QoS) profile by the shared application source;

determine to which of a plurality of QoS classes that at least a portion of the data packets in the plurality belong; and

process the portion of data packets according to respective ones of QoS profiles associated with their respective classes; and

where the data packets are characterized by the shared application source and a plurality of QoS profiles.

43. The wireless apparatus of claim 42, wherein the plurality of data packets comprise a media stream, the media stream comprising a plurality of heterogeneous packet types.

44. The wireless apparatus of claim 43, wherein the heterogeneous packet types are selected from the group consisting of:

P-frames, I-frames, and B-frames.

45. The wireless apparatus of claim 42, where a frame tag within each of the data packets of the portion designates the respective QoS class of that data packet.

46. The wireless apparatus of claim 42, where a frame tag within each of the packets of the at least portion designates the respective packet type.

47. The wireless apparatus of claim 46, where each of the data packets of the portion include information that indicates a prescribed type of error correction encoding.

48. The wireless apparatus of claim 46, wherein the received plurality of packets comprise data frames associated with one or more multimedia streams, the one or more multimedia streams comprising at least one frame tag that identifies a frame type.

49. The wireless apparatus of claim 48, wherein the at least one frame tag is disposed substantially within a hint track of the one or more streams.

50. The wireless apparatus of claim 49, where the at least one frame tag indicates which of a plurality of forward error correction decoders to apply to decode at least one of the data packets.

51. A method for error-correcting data within a digital media stream, comprising:

selecting an appropriate forward error correction (FEC) encoder based at least in part on one or more frame tags supplied within one or more hint tracks of a media stream, where the one or more frame tags indicate an encoding scheme to be used to encode at least a portion of the media stream;

where the encoding scheme is different from an originally assigned encoding scheme associated with the portion of the media stream; and

encoding the portion of the media stream using the selected encoder.

52. A method for decoding data within a digital media stream, comprising:

reading at least a portion of the media stream;

selecting an appropriate forward error correction (FEC) decoder based at least in part on one or more frame tags supplied within the portion of the media stream, where the one or more frame tags comprise an application policy determined by a shared source to support application layer requirements for the portion of the media stream;

decoding the portion of the media stream using the selected decoder; and

where the portion of the media stream is characterized by the shared source and a plurality of quality-of-service (QoS) profiles.

53. The method of claim 52, where the one or more frame tags indicate a frame type selected from the group consisting of:

P-frames, I-frames, and B-frames.