Methods and systems for adaptive delivery of multimedia contents

• US 20050114434A1
• Filed: 12/29/2004
• Published: 05/26/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Hong-Jiang, Yang, Yudong
• Granted Patent: US 7,747,701 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Methods and systems for generic adaptive multimedia content delivery are described. In one embodiment, a novel framework features an abstract content model and an abstract adaptive delivery decision engine. The abstract content model recognizes important aspects of contents while hiding their physical details from other parts of the framework. The decision engine then makes content adaptation plans based on the abstracted model of the contents and needs little knowledge of any physical details of the actual contents. Thus, under the same framework, adaptive delivery of generic contents is possible.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a content request from a content requester;

retrieving the requested content from a content source;

processing the retrieved content to provide an abstract content model;

processing the abstract content model to select an optimal delivery plan the use of which will permit requested content to be delivered to the content requester; and

processing the abstract content model to provide deliverable content in accordance with the selected delivery plan.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing of the retrieved content to provide the abstract content model comprises providing at least one directional graph.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the directional graph features a top-down hierarchical structure.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the directional graph comprises nodes that represent components of the content and edges that represent relationships between the nodes.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the nodes are configured to have a node status that defines dynamic statuses of nodes during content delivery.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one status comprises an inactive status where the node is not yet a deliverable object.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one status comprises an activable status wherein an active condition of the node is satisfied but the node is not yet included in a delivery plan.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one status comprises an activated status wherein the node has been chosen in a delivery plan.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one status comprises a delivered status wherein the node has been delivered successfully to a content receiver.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one status comprises a skipped status wherein the node is not delivered and will not be included in the delivery plan.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein there are multiple different types of edges.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the multiple different types of edges comprise a dependency edge type that defines a logical dependency between nodes.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the multiple different types of edges comprise a route edge type that defines an ordered or hierarchical dependency between nodes.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the multiple different types of edges comprise a mixed edge type that defines a logical dependency between nodes and an ordered or hierarchical dependency between nodes.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the multiple different types of edges comprise one or more of the following:

a dependency edge type that defines a logical dependency between nodes,

a route edge type that defines an ordered or hierarchical dependency between nodes, and

a mixed edge type that defines a logical dependency between nodes and an ordered or hierarchical dependency between nodes.

16. The method of claim 4, wherein the directional graph comprises a directional graph G=(N, E) that satisfies the following condition, where N and E stand for “

node” and

“

edge”

sets of G;

The node set N can be divided into several subsets as N_i, i=1 . . . m where

$N=\stackrel{m}{\underset{i=1}{\bigcup <br><br>}}<br><br>N_i$

and N_i∩

N_j=Φ

,

∀

i,j=1 . . . m,i≠

j.

∀

a=(n_s,n_e)ε

E, there exists a pair of 1≦

i<

j≦

m such that n_sε

N_{i l and ne}ε

N_j.

Δ

a=(n_sn_e)ε

E,s≠

e.

17. A server computer programmed to implement the method of claim 1

18. A method comprising:

processing content that can be the subject of a content request from a content requester to provide an abstract content model;

processing the abstract content model to select at least one delivery plan the use of which will permit requested content to be delivered to a content requester; and

processing the abstract content model to provide deliverable content in accordance with the selected delivery plan.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said processing of the retrieved content to provide the abstract content model comprises providing at least one directional graph.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the directional graph features a top-down hierarchical structure.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the directional graph comprises nodes that represent components of the content and edges that represent relationships between the nodes.