Peer-to-Peer Streaming Of Non-Live Content

• US 20080140853A1
• Filed: 10/05/2007
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rainberry, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Bittorrent Incorporated
• Inventors: Harrison, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,210,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2416 Real-time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/30 in combination with information about buffer occupancy at either end or at transit nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/108 characterised by resources being split in blocks or fragments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1091 Interfacing with client-server systems or between P2P systems

Abstract

A Peer-to-Peer protocol such as BitTorrent is used to assist streaming. Peers download streaming content from the P2P network while simultaneously playing the downloaded content. As the stream plays, an end system downloads any missing pieces directly from a server or other infrastructure node. This method roughly squares server capacity and can be refined to require on average 0(1) servers regardless of the number of concurrent users. Thus BitTorrent assisted streaming scales better than traditional server-client and other infrastructure-only solutions, each of which requires a number of infrastructure nodes that scale linearly as a function of the number of users. Unlike End-System-Multicast, BitTorrent assisted streaming does not subject users to the vagaries of intermediate unreliable, potentially bandwidth-constrained end-systems; the departure of any single end-system has minimal impact on overall performance; and BitTorrent has a well-crafted incentive mechanism for encouraging users to contribute their upstream capacity.

Claims

1. A method for viewing streamed content over a network, the method comprising:

receiving a first portion of a content stream from a peer in a peer-to-peer network, the first portion including less than the entire content stream;

playing the received first portion of the content stream;

obtaining a second portion of the content stream from a server over the network; and

playing the received second portion of the content stream.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the second portion of the content stream is obtained from the server responsive to a determination while the first portion is being received that the first portion will not include the second portion.

3. A method for receiving streamed content over a network, the stream including a plurality of ordered pieces, the method comprising:

obtaining a first set of pieces of the stream from at least one peer in a peer-to-peer network;

playing at least a portion of the first set of pieces;

determining that at least one ordered piece of the plurality of ordered pieces of the stream is not included in the first set of pieces;

determining that the at least one ordered piece of the plurality of ordered pieces will not be received from the peer-to-peer network prior to the playback reaching the at least one ordered piece; and

obtaining the at least one ordered piece from a server.