SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE BROADCAST DISSEMINATION OF TIME-ORDERED DATA

• US 20090199248A1
• Filed: 02/19/2009
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interval Licensing LLC
• Original Assignee: Interval Licensing LLC
• Inventors: Saunders, Steven E., Ngo, J. Thomas, Rubin, Owen
• Granted Patent: US 8,046,818 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/90
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234 Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26275 for distributing content or additional data in a staggered manner, e.g. repeating movies on different channels in a time-staggered manner in a near video on demand system
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47208 for requesting near-video-on-demand content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6375 for requesting retransmission , e.g. of data packets lost or corrupted during transmission from serverARQ protocols H04L1/18; implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

A stream of time-ordered data, such as a movie, is divided into multiple fragments of equal length, which are repetitively transmitted at different respective repetition rates. The fragments are reordered for transmission so that those which occur near the beginning of the original data stream are transmitted more frequently than those which occur later in the data stream. When a user enters a request to utilize the data, the individual fragments are stored upon receipt at the user'"'"'s premises, and reassembled into a contiguous stream. The ordering of the fragments is such that the wait time required before utilization of the data can begin is limited to a predetermined maximum, and at least one copy of every fragment becomes available by the time it is needed.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting a stream of temporally ordered data in a manner which ensures a maximum wait period τ

before utilization of the data can commence at a receiving site, comprising the steps of;

dividing the stream of data into a sequence of fragments;

dividing said sequence of fragments into multiple segments; and

repetitively transmitting each segment of fragments in a respective encoded substream of data such that the fragments in the kth segment from the beginning of the data stream are transmitted with a maximum repetition period p(k)=τ

(1+λ

)^k, where 0≦

λ

≦

0.5.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein each of said fragments contains the same amount of data from said stream.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said substreams are transmitted in a time-division multiplexed manner.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said substreams are transmitted in parallel.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein 1/λ

is in a range from about 3 to about 25.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one segment contains the maximum integral number of fragments that fit within the repetition period of the segment.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the fragments in said segment are transmitted in the same sequence during each repetitive transmission of the segment.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one segment contains less than the maximum integral number of fragments that fit within the maximum repetition period of the segment.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the fragments in said segment are transmitted in a different order during different respective transmissions of the segment.

10. The method of claim 1 further including the step of transmitting at least one additional substream in which every fragment of said data stream is transmitted with the same repetition period.

11. The method of claim 10 further including the step of selectively deleting the fragments in a portion of at least one of said segments in one of said encoded substreams.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein each deleted fragment is selected as one having a corresponding fragment present in an additional substream within a time window that is no greater than the repetition period of its segment from the occurrence of said fragment in each of the preceding and following segments in an encoded substream.

13. The method of claim 12 further including the step of aligning the segment from which fragments are deleted with the additional substream containing the corresponding fragments so that the first fragment to be deleted from the segment is aligned with any one of the fragments in the additional substream that corresponds to a deleted fragment.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein fragments are deleted from said encoded substreams so that all of said segment substreams have the same periodicity.

15. The method of claim 11, further including the steps of designating a last start time beyond which receipt of the complete data stream cannot be ensured, and transmitting no more than one copy of each fragment among said encoded substreams, beginning at said last start time, for a final transmission of the data stream.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein fragments which are contained in said additional substream after said last start time are omitted from said encoded substreams.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the fragments that are omitted are those which occur in the additional substream at a time no later than the time they would have occurred in the encoded substream.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein said last start time precedes the end of the sequence of fragments transmitted on said additional substream by T(λ

N+1), where T is the length of the data stream, 0≦

λ

≦

1 and N is the number of encoded substreams.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein said temporally ordered data comprises a media presentation, and each fragment contains no more than one second of the presentation.

20. In a media broadcast system in which a media presentation is divided into a sequence of fragments and the fragments are repetitively transmitted with different repetition periods, a method for playing back the presentation within a maximum period of time τ

from any arbitrary point in time, comprising the steps of;

detecting an indication to begin playback of the presentation;

loading an index of all fragments in the sequence;

detecting each fragment that is received after said indication;

checking said index upon detection of each received fragment to determine whether a copy of that fragment has been stored;

storing the fragment if the index indicates that the fragment has not been previously stored, and setting the index to indicate that the fragment is being stored; and

providing said stored fragments to a playback device in sequential order after the first fragment in the sequence has been received and stored.

21-49. -49. (canceled)