RECONSTRUCTION OF ERRORED MEDIA STREAMS IN A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20100085963A1
• Filed: 10/08/2008
• Published: 04/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: BEKIARES, TRYONE D., KELLER, MATTHEW C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,081,635 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A method for reconstructing and reproducing a received media stream while minimizing storage space is presented. The media stream transmitted by a transmitting device is uploaded to an external storage device. Metadata including packetization mapping information, missing packets not received by the receiving device, and reproduction time at the receiving device are also uploaded to the storage device. The storage device stores the missing packets and reproduction time of each receiving device if the same media stream is received by multiple devices. The data in the storage device is used to reconstruct the received media stream and reproduce the end user experience.

Claims

1. A method of reproducing a received media stream received by a media stream sink, the method comprising using media stream packets that were transmitted to the sink by a media stream source, source metadata captured at the source, and sink metadata captured at the sink to reproduce the received media stream, the source metadata comprising a mapping of source media stream bits to the transmitted packets and the sink metadata comprising at least one of a list of the transmitted packets that were not present when decoding at the sink occurred or a list of the transmitted packets that were present when decoding at the sink occurred.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sink metadata further comprises a relative or absolute reproduction time when the decoded transmitted media stream packets were played at the sink.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sink metadata further comprises environmental settings of the sink when the decoded transmitted media stream packets were played at the sink.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reproducing a plurality of receive media streams received by different media stream sinks, the transmitted packets having been transmitted to the different media stream sinks, each sink having uploaded its sink metadata to external storage, the source having uploaded the source metadata and the transmitted media stream packets to the external storage.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the source metadata, the transmitted packets, and the sink metadata are validated and authenticated prior to reconstruction to protect the source metadata, the transmitted packets, and the sink metadata against tampering.

6. A method of playback reproduction comprising:

at a source;

acquiring an original media stream;

encoding at least a portion of the original media stream to form an encoded media stream;

internally storing the encoded media stream;

uploading the encoded media stream to external storage; and

transmitting the encoded media stream;

at a sink;

receiving a received media stream corresponding to the encoded media stream;

decoding the received media stream to form a decoded media stream;

internally storing sink metadata comprising at least one of differences or similarities between the encoded and received media streams; and

uploading the sink metadata to the external storage;

reproducing the decoded media stream using the uploaded source media stream and sink metadata.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the encoding comprises compression and packetization of the original media stream, the decoding comprises de-compression and de-packetization of the received media stream, the encoded media stream including transmitted packets, the method further comprising storing and uploading source metadata comprising a mapping of compressed media stream bits to the transmitted packets, the sink metadata comprising a list of the missing transmitted packets not present in the received media stream when decoding occurs, the reproducing further using the uploaded source metadata.

8. The method of claim 7, the reproducing comprising using the mapping to map the uploaded encoded media stream to a set of reproduction packets, removing the missing packets from the set of reproduction packets to form a modified set of reproduction packets, decoding the modified set of reproduction packets, and reproducing the decoded modified set of reproduction packets.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the sink metadata further comprises a reproduction time when the decoded media stream was reproduced by the sink.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the sink metadata further comprises environmental settings at a reproduction time when the decoded media stream was reproduced by the sink.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising the source transmitting the encoded media stream to a plurality of the sinks, each sink uploading its sink metadata to the external storage, reproduction for each sink using the sink metadata of that sink and the encoded media stream.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein of the received media stream and the sink metadata, only the sink metadata is stored internally and transferred to the external storage for the reproduction.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the uploading of at least one of the encoded media stream or sink metadata occurs at a predetermined wall clock time.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein the uploading of at least one of the encoded media stream or sink metadata occurs based on network traffic or when a particular physical connection is made to the source or sink respectively containing the encoded media stream or sink metadata.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein the uploading of at least one of the encoded media stream or sink metadata occurs based on memory considerations of the source or sink respectively containing the encoded media stream or sink metadata.

16. The method of claim 6, wherein the source metadata, the encoded media stream, and the sink metadata are validated and authenticated prior to reconstruction to protect the source metadata, the transmitted encoded media stream, and the sink metadata against tampering.

17. A system comprising:

a source that compresses and packetizes an original media stream to form, respectively, a compressed and packetized media stream, transmits the packetized media stream, and uploads a mapping of bits of the compressed media stream to packets of the packetized media steam and the original or compressed media stream;

a sink that receives a received media stream corresponding to the transmitted packetized media stream from the source, de-packetizes and de-compresses the received media stream, determines missing packets, the missing packets being packets in the transmitted packetized media stream that are missing from the received media stream, uploads identification of the missing packets, and reproduces an output media stream dependent on the de-packetized, de-compressed media stream at a reproduction time;

a common storage in communication with the source and sink, the common storage storing the uploads from the source and sink; and

a reconstruction device that is provided the stored uploads and reproduces the output media stream from at least the stored original or compressed media stream, the mapping, and the missing packets by at least providing a reproduced compressed media stream, packetizing the reproduced compressed media stream using the mapping, removing the missing packets to form a modified reproduced compressed media stream, and de-packetizing and de-compressing the modified reproduced compressed media stream.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the upload from the sink further comprises the reproduction time for each media frame, the reconstruction device using the reproduction time to reproduce the output media stream.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the upload from the sink further comprises environmental settings of the sink at the reproduction time, the reconstruction device using the characteristics of the sink and its environs to reproduce the output media stream.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising a plurality of the sinks, the reconstruction device independently reproducing the user experience for each sink using the upload from the source and the upload from that sink.