Providing Television Broadcasts over a Managed Network and Interactive Content over an Unmanaged Network to a Client Device

• US 20100158109A1
• Filed: 12/31/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ActiveVideo Networks, Inc. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ActiveVideo Networks, Inc. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Marsavin, Andrey, Pavlovskaia, Lena Y., Lawrence, Charles, Dahlby, Joshua
• Granted Patent: US 9,826,197 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.30
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/23 with coding of regions that are present throughout a whole video segment, e.g. sprites, background or mosaic
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/48 using compressed domain processing techniques other than decoding, e.g. modification of transform coefficients, variable length coding [VLC] data or run-length data motion estimation in a transform domain H04N19/547; processing of decoded motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/527 Global motion vector estimation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2343 involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2365 Multiplexing of several video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4347 Demultiplexing of several video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/631 Multimode Transmission, e.g. transmitting basic layers and enhancement layers of the content over different transmission paths or transmitting with different error corrections, different keys or with different transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8173 End-user applications, e.g. Web browser, game
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A client device receives a broadcast content signal containing an interactive identifier over a managed network at a client device. The interactive identifier may be a trigger that is included in a header or embedded within the digital video data. The trigger may have a temporal component, wherein the trigger can expire after a certain period of time. In response to identification of the trigger, the client device sends a user request for interactive content over an unmanaged network. For example, the managed network may be a one-way satellite television network, IP-television network or cable television network and the unmanaged network may be the Internet. The client device switches between receiving data from the managed network to receiving data from the unmanaged network.

Claims

1. A method of providing reliable transmission of interactive content having a video component and an audio component over an unmanaged network to a client decoding device associated with a user, the client decoding device receiving broadcast video content over a managed network and being capable of switching between the broadcast video content and the interactive content for output to a display device, the method comprising:

receiving a request to provide the interactive content to the client decoding device over the unmanaged network;

encoding a first plurality of frames of the interactive video content according to a video encoding bitrate, thereby forming a first portion of encoded interactive content;

transmitting the first portion of encoded interactive content to the client decoding device, over the unmanaged network, using a reliable data transmission protocol;

determining a transmission bandwidth of the first portion over the unmanaged network;

adjusting the video encoding bitrate according to the transmission bandwidth;

encoding a second portion of the interactive content according to the adjusted video encoding bitrate for the video component and the unadjusted audio encoding bitrate for the audio component, thereby forming a second portion of encoded interactive content; and

transmitting the second portion of encoded interactive content to the client decoding device, over the unmanaged network, using the reliable data transmission protocol.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the unmanaged network includes at least a portion of the Internet.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the managed network includes a satellite network, a cable television network, or an IP television network.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the unmanaged network and the managed network operate over a single communications link.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein encoding the interactive content includes encoding according to an MPEG standard.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the reliable data transmission protocol includes TCP.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the transmission bandwidth includes determining the quantity of data in a transmission buffer as a function of time.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein adjusting the video encoding bitrate includes proportionally adjusting the video encoding bitrate according to the determined transmission bandwidth.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein adjusting the video encoding bitrate includes adjusting the video encoding bitrate according to a derivative of the determined transmission bandwidth as a function of time.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein adjusting the video encoding bitrate includes adjusting a video frame rate, selecting a pattern of types for successive video frames, or adjusting a video data quantization value.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the client decoding device switches its output from the broadcast video content to the interactive content after the second portion of encoded interactive content has been transmitted.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

when the determined bandwidth becomes less than a minimum bandwidth associated with the interactive content, transmitting to the client decoding device, over the unmanaged network, using the reliable data transmission protocol, a service unavailable content instead of the encoded interactive content.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

forming a list that includes a plurality of interactive services, each interactive service in the list providing interactive content according to a minimum bandwidth;

when the determined bandwidth becomes less than a minimum bandwidth associated with the interactive content, selecting from the list an interactive service according to a business rule; and

transmitting to the client decoding device, over the unmanaged network, using the reliable data transmission protocol, encoded interactive content provided by the selected interactive service.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the business rule includes a rule pertaining to user data associated with the user, and selecting the interactive service including selecting according to the user data.

15. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one frame of the first plurality of video frames is stitched together in the encoded domain from a plurality of video sources.

16. A method of adapting to varying conditions in the reception of interactive content over an unmanaged network in a client decoding device associated with a user, the interactive content having a video component and an audio component, the client decoding device receiving broadcast video content over a managed network, the method comprising:

receiving the interactive content in the client decoding device from the unmanaged network using a reliable data transmission protocol, including determining a receiving bandwidth at which the interactive content is received;

demultiplexing the received interactive content into the video component and the audio component;

simulating a playback of the audio component based on the receiving bandwidth; and

decoding the audio component and the video component in the client decoding device at a bitrate based on the simulation.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the unmanaged network includes at least a portion of the Internet.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the managed network includes a satellite network, a cable television network, or an IP television network.

19. The method according to claim 16, wherein the unmanaged network and the managed network operate over a single communications link.

20. The method according to claim 16, wherein encoding the interactive content includes encoding according to an MPEG standard.

21. The method according to claim 16, wherein the reliable data transmission protocol includes TCP.

22. The method according to claim 16, wherein simulating the playback includes determining the quantity of data in an audio buffer as a function of time.

23. The method according to claim 16, wherein the decoding bitrate is proportional to the receiving bandwidth.

24. The method according to claim 16, further comprising increasing or decreasing a size of an audio buffer as a function of the receiving bandwidth.

25. The method according to claim 16, further comprising receiving a trigger in the client decoding device over the managed network, the trigger causing the client decoding device to request the interactive content over the unmanaged network.

26. The method according to claim 16, further comprising receiving a trigger at a headend, the trigger causing the headend to direct the client decoding device to request the interactive content over the unmanaged network.