SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING UNIVERSAL FOLLOW-ME FUNCTIONALITY IN A UPNP AV NETWORK

• US 20090216351A1
• Filed: 02/23/2006
• Published: 08/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Van Horck, Hendrikus G., Schenk, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 8,700,798 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/45 Network directories; Name-to-address mapping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

A system and method is provided for extending the capabilities of an UPnP AV network architecture with “Universal Follow-me” functionality to provide users of such networks with a capability to pause or stop the playing of media content at one location in the UPnP AV network (100, 700) and resume the playing of the media content at a later point in time at a different or the same location without loss of continuity.

Claims

1. A method for providing Universal follow-me functionality in a UPnP AV network (100, 700), comprising the acts of:

(a) storing metadata (808) in a media server'"'"'s UPnP content directory service (CDS) in response to the occurrence of a first AVT flow control event in the network (100, 700);

(b) storing additional metadata (809) in the media server'"'"'s CDS in response to the occurrence of at least a second AVT flow control event in the network (100, 700) related to said recently played media content;

(c) searching, from a control point (202, 203, 204, 206) in said network (100, 700), an external representation of said metadata and additional metadata stored in said media server'"'"'s CDS related to said recently played media content;

d) accessing said metadata and said additional metadata stored in the media server'"'"'s CDS, via said external representation (900) of said metadata and said additional metadata to resume playing said recently played media content.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said external representation is an additional CDS tree appended to the media server'"'"'s CDS tree, wherein said additional CDS tree is comprised of a plurality of nodes wherein each node is an external representation of at least a portion of the metadata and additional metadata stored in the media server'"'"'s CDS.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of nodes are constructed by the CDS.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata stored at the media server'"'"'s CDS at act (a) comprises at least:

a URI identifier of the media content; and

an identifier identifying a renderer (102, 103, 104, 106) playing said media content.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the act of storing further additional metadata in the media server'"'"'s UPnP content directory service (CDS) responsive to the occurrence of a content transfer complete AVT flow control event (811) in the UPnP AV network (100, 700), said content transfer complete AVT flow control event (811) corresponding to the completion of the streaming of the media content from the media server (105) over the UPnP AV network (100, 700).

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the act of tagging the media content as being completely streamed upon completion of the streaming of the media content from the media server (105) over the UPnP AV network (100, 700).

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising the act of deleting the tagged media content from a recently played section of the media server'"'"'s CDS in accordance with pre-established deletion criteria.

8. A system for providing Universal follow-me functionality in a UPnP AV network, the system comprising:

means for storing metadata (808) in a media server'"'"'s UPnP content directory service (CDS) in response to the occurrence of a first AVT flow control event in the network (100, 700);

means for storing additional metadata (809) in the media server'"'"'s CDS in response to the occurrence of at least a second AVT flow control event in the network (100, 700) related to said recently played media content;

means for searching, from a control point (202, 203, 204, 206) in said network (100, 700), an external representation of said metadata and additional metadata stored in said media server'"'"'s CDS related to said recently played media content; and

means for accessing said metadata and said additional metadata stored in the media server'"'"'s CDS, via said external representation (900) of said metadata and said additional metadata to resume playing said recently played media content.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising means for storing further additional metadata in the media server'"'"'s UPnP content directory service (CDS) responsive to the occurrence of a content transfer complete AVT flow control event (811) in the network (100, 700), said content transfer complete AVT flow control event (811) corresponding to the completion of the streaming of the media content from the media server (105) over the UPnP network (100, 700).

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising the act of tagging the media content as being completely streamed upon completion of the streaming of the media content from the media server (105) over the UPnP network (100, 700).

11. The system according to claim 10, further comprising the act of deleting the tagged media content from a recently played section of the media server'"'"'s CDS in accordance with pre-established deletion criteria.