Method and apparatus for transmitting media content

• US 9,900,643 B2
• Filed: 10/10/2014
• Issued: 02/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gardner, James
• Primary Examiner(s): Salce, Jason
• Application Number:
  US14/511,959
• Publication Number:
  US 20160105704A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,229 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234345 the reformatting operation being performed only on part of the stream, e.g. a region of the image or a time segment
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2662 Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/438 Interfacing the downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. retrieving encoded video stream packets from an IP network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6338 directed to network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6473 Monitoring network processes errors for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64738 Monitoring network characteristics, e.g. bandwidth, congestion level data switched network analysis H04L41/14; monitoring functioning in data switched networks H04L43/0817; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8458 involving uncompressed content

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a method for providing redundancy in a video data stream. For every data frame of a plurality of data frames of video content, the method includes dividing the data frame into a plurality of data segments and copying a plurality of each of the plurality of data segments to the plurality of data frames in a data stream to provide redundancy for the data frame within the plurality of data frames in the data stream. The plurality of each of the plurality of data segments is distributed across the plurality of data frames to provide generate a plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames that provide the redundancy over a protection interval associated with a network path. The method includes transmitting a data stream comprising the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames to a receiver via the network path. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a system comprising processor, uncompressed video comprising a plurality of data frames;

determining, by the system, a switch protection interval for a deterministic network path;

determining, by the system, a condition of the deterministic network path;

configuring, by the system, an information dispersal algorithm according to the condition that is determined;

for each data frame of the plurality of data frames;

generating, by the system, a plurality of data segments, according to an information dispersal algorithm, from data representative of the data frame to create redundancy for the data frame in the plurality of data segments, wherein the plurality of data segments is sufficient to enable a multimedia receiver to reconstruct the data frame upon a corruption of a subset of the plurality of data segments; and

distributing, by the system, a plurality of copies, according to an information dispersal algorithm, of the plurality of data segments among the plurality of data frames to generate a plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames, which are sufficiently distributed across the plurality of data frames to provide the redundancy over the switch protection interval; and

transmitting, by the system, a data stream comprising the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames to the multimedia receiver via the deterministic network path.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information dispersal algorithm transforms the data frame into the plurality of data segments via a matrix product of a sequent of vectors corresponding to the data frame.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data stream that is transmitted is packetized by data segments.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the condition comprises one of a bandwidth limitation, a switching protection event, a switching latency, or any combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the switch protection interval comprises identifying a switch protection delay for the deterministic network path.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the deterministic network path comprises a high definition multimedia interface.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia receiver extracts a first subset of the plurality of data frames from the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames of the data stream that are received by the multimedia receiver.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the multimedia receiver determines a corruption of the first subset of the plurality of data frames based on an error checking algorithm.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the multimedia receiver extracts a second subset of the plurality of data segments from the plurality of copies of the plurality of data segments that are distributed in the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames responsive to detecting the corruption of the first subset of the plurality of data frames.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia receiver comprises a set-top box that presents video content from the data stream.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting, by the system, the data stream to a network interface device to enable the network interface device to convert the data stream into a plurality of network packets for transmission over a data network.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the uncompressed video is received from a network device, and further comprising:

directing, by the system, the network device to decode encoded video content to generate the uncompressed video; and

directing, by the system, the network device to transmit the uncompressed video.

13. A device comprising:

a memory to store executable instructions; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the memory, wherein the executable instructions, responsive to being executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising;

configuring an information dispersal algorithm according to a condition of a network path;

receiving video content comprising a plurality of data frames;

for a data frame of the plurality of data frames;

dividing the data frame into a plurality of data segments according to the information dispersal algorithm; and

appending a plurality of copies of the plurality of data segments, according to the information dispersal algorithm, to the plurality of data frames in a data stream to generate a plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames, which provide redundancy for the data frame within the plurality of data frames in the data stream, wherein the plurality of copies is distributed across the plurality of data frames to provide the redundancy over a switching protection interval associated with a network path; and

transmitting the data stream comprising the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames to a multimedia receiver via the network path.

14. The device of claim 13, wherein the network path comprises a deterministic network path and wherein the operations further comprise determining the switch protection interval for the deterministic network path.

15. The device of claim 13, wherein the data stream that is transmitted is packetized by data segments.

16. The device of claim 13, wherein the information dispersal algorithm transforms the data frame into the plurality of data segments via a matrix product of a sequent of vectors corresponding to the data frame.

17. The device of claim 13, wherein the multimedia receiver extracts a redundant subset of the plurality of data segments from the plurality of copies of the plurality of data segments that are distributed in the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames responsive to detecting a corruption of a first subset of the plurality of data frames.

18. A machine-readable storage device comprising executable instructions which, responsive to being executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising:

configuring an information dispersal algorithm according to a condition of a network path;

receiving video content comprising a plurality of data frames;

for a data frame of a plurality of data frames of video content;

dividing the data frame into a plurality of data segments according to the information dispersal algorithm; and

copying a plurality of each of the plurality of data segments, according to the information dispersal algorithm, to the plurality of data frames in a data stream, wherein the plurality of each of the plurality of data segments is distributed across the plurality of data frames to generate a plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames that provide the redundancy over a protection interval associated with a network path; and

transmitting a data stream comprising the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames to a receiver via the network path.

19. The machine-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the information dispersal algorithm transforms the data frame into the plurality of data segments via a matrix product of a sequent of vectors corresponding to the data frame.

20. The machine-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the receiver extracts a redundant subset of the plurality of data segments from the plurality of copies of the plurality of data segments that are distributed in the plurality of redundancy-enhanced data frames responsive to detecting a corruption of a first subset of the plurality of data frames.