Remote transmission system

• US 8,811,292 B2
• Filed: 09/03/2013
• Issued: 08/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LiveU Ltd. (LiveU, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: LiveU Ltd. (LiveU, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ohayon, Rony Haim, Cohen, Avichai
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Brian D
• Application Number:
  US14/016,982
• Publication Number:
  US 20140036781A1
• Time in Patent Office: 350 Days
• Field of Search: 370/328, 370/338, 370/235, 370/351, 370/252, 370/468
• US Class Current: 370/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0697 using spatial multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0058 Block-coded modulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0071 Use of interleaving interleaving per se H03M13/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2212/00 Encapsulation of packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/02 Details ; arrangements for supplying electrical power along data transmission lines systems for transmitting signals via power distribution lines H04B3/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/25 with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/9057 Arrangements for supporting packet reassembly or resequencing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/324 in the data link layer [OSI layer 2], e.g. HDLC
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2383 Channel coding or modulation of digital bit-stream, e.g. QPSK modulation arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received by adapting the channel coding H04L1/0009; analogue front ends or means for connecting modulators, demodulators or transceivers to a transmission line H04L27/0002
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4382 Demodulation or channel decoding, e.g. QPSK demodulation analog front ends or means for connecting modulators, demodulators or transceivers to a transmission line H04L27/0002
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6131 involving transmission via a mobile phone network wireless downlink channel access H04W74/006
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6143 involving transmission via a satellite
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/631 Multimode Transmission, e.g. transmitting basic layers and enhancement layers of the content over different transmission paths or transmitting with different error corrections, different keys or with different transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6375 for requesting retransmission , e.g. of data packets lost or corrupted during transmission from serverARQ protocols H04L1/18; implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/21 : in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 : using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/15 : Setup of multiple wireless link connections

Abstract

A virtual broadband transmitting unit (FIG. 2) includes a stream generator to generate a multiplicity of data streams (115) from an incoming media data stream, and a transmission manager to control the upload of the multiplicity of data streams along a multiplicity of transmission channels (112) to at least one wireless communication network. A virtual broadband receiver (35) includes means to receive a multiplicity of media data streams from a multiplicity of data connections, and an assembly engine to assemble the data streams into a single media stream.

Claims

1. A device configured to facilitate a live media transmission from a remote location, the device comprising:

at least one processor configured to receive a first plurality of packets and a second plurality of packets, the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets being associated with a live media stream, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to distribute the first plurality of packets and second plurality of packets, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to;

enable transmission of the first plurality of packets over an Internet connection to a receiver via at least one wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

enable transmission of the second plurality of packets to the receiver via at least one other wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

determine performance characteristics of at least one upload session using at least one wireless modem from a plurality of wireless modems associated with the at least one wireless communication network and the at least one other wireless communication network; and

adjust distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets based on the performance characteristics of the at least one wireless upload session; and

enable transmission of the first plurality of packets and second plurality of packets in a manner permitting assembling of the live media stream at the receiver.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to distribute the first plurality of packets to at least a first wireless modem in the at least one wireless communication network and the second plurality of packets to at least a second wireless modem in the at least one other wireless communication network based on the performance characteristics, wherein the performance characteristics is reflective of current upload performance.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to enable transmission of the first plurality of packets and second plurality of packets via the at least one wireless communication network when the upload performance of the at least a first wireless modem enables the live media stream to be assembled at the receiver at a desired quality.

4. The device of claim 2, wherein the at least a first wireless modem and the at least a second wireless modem each lack sufficient performance to singularly transmit the live media stream at a desired quality in a timely manner, while a combined performance of the at least a first wireless modem and the at least a second wireless modem has sufficient performance to transmit the live media stream at the desired quality in a timely manner.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to distribute the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets in a manner that enables the first plurality of packets to be transmitted via the at least one wireless communication network while the second plurality of packets are transmitted via the at least one other wireless communication network.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to instruct a video encoder configured to adjust at least one of settings of the encoder and a compression rate of the live media stream transmitted via the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein by adjusting the distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets the at least one processor is enabled to reduce transmission costs of the live media transmission.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein adjusting the distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets includes terminating distribution of packets to the at least one wireless modem.

9. A method for facilitating a live media transmission from a device at a remote location, the method comprising:

receiving at least a first plurality of packets and a second plurality of packets both associated with a live media stream;

distributing the first plurality of packets and second plurality of packets to a plurality of modems associated with the device configured to be carried by hand;

transmitting the first plurality of packets over an Internet connection to a receiver via at least a first wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location; and

transmitting the second plurality of packets to the receiver via at least a second wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

determining performance characteristics of at least one upload session using at least one modem from the plurality of modems; and

adjust distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets in a manner permitting assembling of the live media stream at the receiver based on the performance characteristics.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least a first wireless communication network includes a cellular network and the at least a second wireless communication network includes a WiFi network.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising analyzing performance statistics of an ongoing upload session.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising dynamically adjusting distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets based on the performance of the ongoing upload session.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising detecting a change in the at least one of plurality of modems associated with the device and reconfiguring the distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets based on the detected change.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the change in the at least one modem includes at least one of connecting and disconnecting the at least one modem.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein reconfiguring the distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets includes changing a number of packets in at least one of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the device is configured to be carried by hand.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the device is significantly lighter than a Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) Terminal.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein the performance characteristics is associated with at least one performance factor selected from a group consisting of:

modem rate, bandwidth, modem reliability, operating license limitations, network congestion, modem error rate, transmission latency, and connection quality.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein one or more of the plurality of modems are included in the device.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer implementable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving at least a first plurality of packets and a second plurality of packets both associated with a live media stream;

distributing the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets to a plurality of modems associated with the device configured to be carried by hand;

transmitting the first plurality of packets over an Internet connection to a receiver via at least a first wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location; and

transmitting the second plurality of packets to the receiver via at least a second wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

determining performance characteristics of at least one upload session using at least one modem from the plurality of modems; and

adjust distribution of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets based on the performance characteristics in a manner permitting assembling of the live media stream at the receiver.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the at least one processor is included within a device configured to be carried by hand.

22. A device configured to facilitate a live media transmission from a remote location, the device comprising:

at least one processor configured to receive a data stream associated with a live media stream and to divide it to a first plurality of packets and a second plurality of packets, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to;

distribute the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets to a plurality of modems associated with the device;

enable transmission of the first plurality of packets to a receiver via at least one wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

enable transmission of the second plurality of packets to the receiver via at least one other wireless communication network wirelessly accessible from the remote location;

determine performance characteristics of at least one upload session using at least one modem from the plurality of modems; and

adjust a rate of distributing packets to the at least one modem based on the performance characteristics to enable assembling of the live media stream at the receiver.

23. The device of claim 22, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine the performance characteristics of at least one upload session using all plurality of modems associated with the device.

24. The device of claim 23, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to identify a combined upload capacity of the plurality of modems.

25. The device of claim 22, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to use the performance characteristics to analyze actual performance statistics from an ongoing upload session.

26. The device of claim 25, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to anticipate a change in an overall throughput of the plurality of modems.

27. The device of claim 22, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to receive feedback from the receiver via a back channel.

28. The device of claim 27, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to use the feedback from the receiver to instruct a video encoder to increase a compression rate of at least one of the first plurality of packets and the second plurality of packets.

29. The device of claim 22, wherein the performance characteristics is associated with an observed error rate of the at least one modem.

30. The device of claim 22, wherein the performance characteristics is associated with a bandwidth of the at least one modem.