Shared content storage

• US 9,571,863 B2
• Filed: 12/01/2015
• Issued: 02/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Safran Passenger Innovations LLC (Safran SA)
• Original Assignee: Systems and Software Enterprises LLC (Safran SA)
• Inventors: Healy, Christopher P., Bird, Randall, Cote, Kevin, Farley, Rodney
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Mushfikh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Imperial, Jaycee
• Application Number:
  US14/955,420
• Publication Number:
  US 20160088318A1
• Time in Patent Office: 441 Days
• Field of Search: 725/74
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2146 located in mass transportation means, e.g. aircraft, train or bus flight-deck installations for entertainment or communications B64D11/0015; arrangements specially adapted for transportation systems in broadcast systems H04H20/62; moving wireless networks H04W84/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2182 involving memory arrays, e.g. RAID disk arrays RAID arrays per se G06F3/0689; use of parity to protect data in RAID systems G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/242 Synchronization processes, e.g. processing of PCR [Program Clock References] arrangements for synchronising broadcast or distribution via plural systems in broadcast distribution systems H04H20/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

Entertainment systems for aircraft and other vehicles are described having a plurality of media players. The media players collectively store a full content set, with each media player storing only a fraction of the full content set. Each of the media players can be configured to index the full content set, such that media players can obtain missing content.

Claims

1. A vehicular entertainment system, comprising:

a first plurality of media players disposed within a vehicle that collectively store a first full content set spread across the first plurality of media players, each of media players from the first plurality of media players storing only a fraction of the first full content set; and

a second plurality of media players disposed within the vehicle that collectively store a second full content set spread across the plurality of second media players, each of the media players from the second plurality of media players storing only a fraction of the second full content set; and

wherein each of the media players in the first plurality of media players and the second plurality of media players is configured to;

index the first full content set collectively stored by the first plurality of media players according to a first scheduled period, to allow each of the media players to obtain content from the first full content set during the first scheduled period; and

index the second full content set collectively stored by the second plurality of media players according to a second scheduled period, to allow each of the media players to obtain content from the second full content set during the second scheduled period, wherein the first scheduled period and second scheduled period are mutually exclusive.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the first plurality of media players and each of the second plurality of media players are respectively disposed within at least one of a seatback, a seat arm, and a bulkhead of the vehicle.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the first full content set is striped across media players from the first plurality of media players in a seat group.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the seat group comprises a set of media players from the first plurality of media players in a seat row.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the first plurality of media players are each configured to provide their fraction of the first full content set to other media players lacking the content based on seat-row addressing.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the first plurality of media players are each configured to provide their fraction of the first full content set to other media players lacking the content based on seat-column addressing.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein fractions of the first full content set are mirrored across media players from the first plurality of media players in seat columns.

8. The system of claim 6 wherein the media players of a seat column are coupled via a wireless connection.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the first full content set is collectively stored across the first plurality of media players in a RAID array.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the first full content set comprises first and second subsets, and wherein Y media players are required to store the full first subset and Z media players are required to store the full second subset, and wherein Y is less than Z.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the first subset comprises free content and the second subset comprises pay-per-view content.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein Y and Z are based on a projected number of requests for the first and second subsets.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising an in-vehicular wireless network communicatively coupling the first plurality of the media players to each other.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage device of each media player is field replaceable.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the second plurality of media players is configured to collectively receive the second full content set during the first scheduled period.