Playlists for real-time or near real-time streaming

• US 9,558,282 B2
• Filed: 01/28/2014
• Issued: 01/31/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Biderman, David, May, William Jr., Tseng, Alan, Pantos, Roger, Batson, James David
• Primary Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Assistant Examiner(s): VO, CECILE H
• Application Number:
  US14/166,612
• Publication Number:
  US 20140143388A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,099 Days
• Field of Search: 709/231, 707/E17.01, 707/E17.009, 707/E17.028, 707/758, 707/705, 707/736, 707/716
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/34 ensuring sequence integrity, e.g. using sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234363 by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for clients with a lower screen resolution
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses for real-time or near real-time streaming of content using transfer protocols such as an HTTP compliant protocol. In one embodiment, a method includes dividing a stream of data, representing the contiguous time based content of a program (e.g. a live video broadcast), into a plurality of distinct media files, and generating a playlist file having a plurality of tags and Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) indicating an order of presentation of the plurality of distinct media files. The plurality of media files and the playlist file can be made available for transmission to a client device which can retrieve the media files using the playlist file.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a variant playlist file over a network using a transfer protocol;

receiving, in response to the requesting, the variant playlist indicating a first playlist file and a second playlist file representing first and second alternative media playlist files for a same contiguous media presentation, each of the first and second playlist files specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to a different value of an encoding parameter, and the encoding parameter indicating a bit rate at which the segments are encoded, the variant playlist comprising;

a plurality of tags, wherein each tag indicates a value of the encoding parameter of a respective one of the first and second playlist files, and

a plurality of Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) wherein each URI corresponds to one of the plurality of tags and the URI specifies a respective one of the first and second playlist files that specify segments encoded according to a value of the encoding parameter, wherein selection of a URI from the variant playlist file requests transmittal of a respective one of the first and second playlist files specified by the selected URI, and wherein the requested playlist file includes a plurality of URIs specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to the value of the encoding parameter indicated by the tag in the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected URI, wherein one or more of the plurality of tags indicates a first encoding parameter associated with the first playlist file and a second encoding parameter associated with the second playlist file wherein the first encoding parameter is different than the second encoding parameter, wherein the first and second encoding parameters each specify a bandwidth parameter, and the first encoding parameter specifies a lower associated bandwidth parameter than the second encoding parameter, and wherein the first playlist and the second playlist each is configured to be used at the client device to recreate a contiguous time based stream of content for the same program;

selecting and requesting, from the variant playlist with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file using the transfer protocol, wherein the requesting uses a URI from the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected playlist file;

receiving, with the client device, the requested playlist file, the requested playlist file having one or more URIs indicating encoded segments of the contiguous time based stream of content and one or more tags having parameters related to playback of the encoded segments;

using the transfer protocol, requesting the encoded segments in an order indicated by the URIs in the requested playlist file;

receiving the requested encoded segments over the network using the transfer protocol.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating an audio and/or video output representing the same contiguous media presentation by playing the media content with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file, and wherein selecting, with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file comprises selecting the first playlist file having the lower associated bandwidth parameter specified in the first encoding parameter.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring available bandwidth on the client device while receiving the requested encoded segments over the network wherein the requested encoded segments are received over the transfer protocol;

comparing the available bandwidth and the first encoding parameter associated with the selected playlist file, the first encoding parameter specifying the first bandwidth parameter;

wherein the requesting the first or the second playlist file comprises requesting the second playlist file if the second bandwidth parameter, specified by the second encoding parameter, is within the available bandwidth and the available bandwidth exceeds the first bandwidth parameter;

wherein the requesting of the encoded segments comprises requesting media content utilizing URIs in the second playlist file.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein segments from each of the first and second playlist files comprise a same audio encoding.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating an audio and/or video output representing the same contiguous media presentation by playing the encoded segments with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first encoding parameter and the second encoding parameter are different in that they specify one of:

encodings with the same codec but at different data rates or encodings with different codecs at the same or

different data rates.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a tag in the variant playlist file comprises an EXT-X-STREAM-INF tag that identifies a connection bandwidth as an upper bound of a stream bit rate.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first and second playlist files comprises optional content that is not a part of the same contiguous media presentation, wherein the optional content is the same for each of the first and second playlist files.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the segments of the same contiguous media presentation are divided on a packet or a key frame boundary.

10. An article comprising a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a variant playlist file over a network using a transfer protocol;

receiving, in response to the requesting, the variant playlist indicating a first playlist file and a second playlist file representing first and second alternative media playlist files for a same contiguous media presentation, each of the first and second playlist files specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to a different value of an encoding parameter, and the encoding parameter indicates a bit rate at which the segments are encoded, the variant playlist comprising;

a plurality of tags, wherein each tag indicates a value of the encoding parameter of a respective one of the first and second playlist files, and

a plurality of Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) wherein each URI corresponds to one of the plurality of tags and the URI specifies a respective one of the first and second playlist files that specifies segments encoded according to a value of the encoding parameter, wherein selection of a URI from the variant playlist file requests transmittal of a respective one of the first and second playlist files specified by the selected URI, and wherein the requested playlist file includes a plurality of URIs specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to the value of the encoding parameter indicated by the tag in the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected URI wherein one or more of the plurality of tags indicates a first encoding parameter associated with the first playlist file and a second encoding parameter associated with the second playlist file wherein the first encoding parameter is different than the second encoding parameter, wherein the first and second encoding parameters each specify a bandwidth parameter, and the first encoding parameter specifies a lower associated bandwidth parameter than the second encoding parameter, and wherein the first playlist and the second playlist each is configured to be used at the client device to recreate a contiguous time based stream content for the same program;

selecting and requesting, from the variant playlist with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file using the transfer protocol, wherein the requesting uses a URI from the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected playlist file;

receiving, with the client device, the requested playlist file, the requested playlist file having one or more URIs indicating encoded segments of the contiguous time based stream of content and one or more tags having parameters related to playback of the encoded segments;

using the transfer protocol, requesting the encoded segments in an order indicated by the URIs in the requested playlist file;

receiving the requested encoded segments over the network using the transfer protocol.

11. The article of claim 10 further comprising:

generating an audio and/or video output representing same contiguous media presentation by playing the encoded segments with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file, and wherein selecting, with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file comprises selecting the first playlist file having the lower associated bandwidth parameter specified in the first encoding parameter.

12. The article of claim 10, further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to perform a further method comprising:

monitoring available bandwidth on the client device while receiving the requested encoded segments over the network wherein the requested encoded segments are received over the transfer protocol;

comparing the available bandwidth and the first encoding parameter associated with the selected playlist file, the first encoding parameter specifying the first bandwidth parameter;

wherein the requesting the first or the second playlist file comprises requesting the second playlist if the second bandwidth parameter, specified by the second encoding parameter, is within the available bandwidth and the available bandwidth exceeds the first bandwidth parameter;

wherein the requesting of the encoded segments comprises requesting encoded segments utilizing URIs in the second playlist file.

13. The article of claim 10 wherein segments from each of the first and second playlist files comprise a same audio encoding.

14. The article of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises:

generating an audio and/or video output representing the same contiguous media presentation by playing the encoded segments with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file.

15. The article of claim 10 wherein the first encoding parameter and the second encoding parameter are different in that they specify one of:

encodings with the same codec but at different data rates or encodings with different codecs at the same or different data rates.

16. An apparatus comprising:

means for requesting, with a client device, a variant playlist file over a network using a transfer protocol;

means for receiving, in response to the request, the variant playlist indicating a first playlist file and a second playlist file representing first and second alternative media playlist files for a same contiguous media presentation, each of the first and second playlist files specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to a different value of an encoding parameter, and the encoding parameter indicates a bit rate at which the segments are encoded, the variant playlist comprising;

a plurality of tags, wherein each tag indicates a value of the encoding parameter of a respective one of the first and second playlist files, and

a plurality of Universal Resource Indicators (URIs) wherein each URI corresponds to one of the plurality of tags and the URI specifies a respective one of the first and second playlist files that specifies segments encoded according to a value of the encoding parameter, wherein selection of a URI from the variant playlist file requests transmittal of a respective one of the first and second playlist files specified by the selected URI, and wherein the requested playlist file includes a plurality of URIs specifying segments of the same contiguous media presentation encoded according to the value of the encoding parameter indicated by the tag in the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected URI wherein one or more of the plurality of tags indicates a first encoding parameter associated with the first playlist file and a second encoding parameter associated with the second playlist file wherein the first encoding parameter is different than the second encoding parameter, wherein the first and second encoding parameters each specify a bandwidth parameter, and the first encoding parameter specifies a lower associated bandwidth parameter than the second encoding parameter, and wherein the first playlist and the second playlist each is configured to be used at the client device to recreate a contiguous time based stream of content for the same program;

means for selecting and requesting, from the variant playlist with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file using the transfer protocol, the selected first or second playlist file with the client device, wherein the requesting uses a URI from the variant playlist file corresponding to the selected playlist file;

means for receiving the requested playlist file, the requested playlist file having one or more URIs indicating encoded segments of the contiguous time based stream of content and one or more tags having parameters related to playback of the encoded segments;

means for, using the transfer protocol, requesting the encoded segments in an order indicated by the URIs in the requested playlist file;

means for receiving the requested encoded segments over the network using the transfer protocol;

means for generating an audio and/or video output representing the stream of content by playing the media content with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising:

means for monitoring available bandwidth on the client device while receiving the requested encoded segments over the network wherein the requested encoded segments are received through the non-streaming transfer protocol;

means for comparing the available bandwidth and the first encoding parameter associated with the selected playlist file, the first encoding parameter specifying the first bandwidth parameter;

means for requesting the second playlist if the second bandwidth parameter, specified by a second encoding parameter, is within the available bandwidth and the available bandwidth exceeds the first bandwidth parameter;

means for requesting encoded content utilizing URIs in the second bandwidth playlist file.

18. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein segments from each of the first and second playlist files comprise a same audio encoding.

19. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the first encoding parameter and the second encoding parameter are different in that they specify one of:

encodings with the same codec but at different data rates or encodings with different codecs at the same or different data rates.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:

means for generating an audio and/or video output representing the same contiguous media presentation by playing the encoded segments with the client device in the order indicated by the requested playlist file, and wherein selecting, with the client device, the first playlist file or the second playlist file comprises selecting the first playlist file having the lower associated bandwidth parameter specified in the first encoding parameter.