METHOD, APPARATUS, AND SYSTEM FOR ADJUSTING MULTIMEDIA ENCODING RATE

• US 20110090922A1
• Filed: 12/28/2010
• Published: 04/21/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Xiong, Lixia, Yu, Delei, Yang, Daoyan, Liu, Ying, Wang, Qi
• Granted Patent: US 8,467,409 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/465
• 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 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/752 adapting media to network capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS

Abstract

A method, an apparatus, and a system for adjusting a multimedia encoding rate are disclosed. The method includes: obtaining an expected multimedia encoding rate by using the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of a multimedia service, the expected QoE of the multimedia service, and the current multimedia encoding rate as input parameters and according to a preset multimedia resource policy decision, where the expected multimedia encoding rate is used as a reference for adjusting the current multimedia encoding rate. With the present disclosure, under the current network performance, an optimal point for balancing the effects of the media encoding rate and the network performance on the QoE is found by adjusting the multimedia encoding rate, thus achieving optimal QoE. In this way, the adjustment process is simple and fast and the success rate is high, thus improving the QoE.

Claims

1. A method for adjusting a multimedia encoding rate, comprising:

obtaining an available network bandwidth corresponding to a transmission path of a multimedia service;

obtaining expected quality of experience (QoE) of the multimedia service and a current multimedia encoding rate; and

obtaining an expected multimedia encoding rate by using the available network bandwidth, the expected QoE of the multimedia service, and the current multimedia encoding rate as input parameters and according to a preset multimedia resource decision policy, wherein the expected multimedia encoding rate is used as a reference for adjusting the current multimedia encoding rate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service is a minimum value of available bandwidths of multiple physical links on the transmission path of the multimedia service.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the expected QoE of the multimedia service comprises one of the following:

querying for and obtaining the expected QoE of the multimedia service according to a multimedia service request or a multimedia service QoE improvement request sent from a user; and

obtaining the expected QoE according to a multimedia service request or a multimedia service QoE improvement request that carries the expected QoE of the multimedia service sent from the user.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

when querying for and obtaining the expected QoE of the multimedia service according to the multimedia service request or multimedia service QoE improvement request sent from the user, requesting the user to send the expected QoE of the multimedia service if failing to find the expected QoE of the multimedia service.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the preset multimedia resource decision policy is a relation among the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service, the expected QoE, the current multimedia encoding rate, and the expected multimedia encoding rate.

6. A system for adjusting a multimedia encoding rate, comprising a multimedia resource control server and a network resource control server, wherein:

the multimedia resource control server is configured to;

interact with the network resource control server to obtain an available network bandwidth corresponding to a transmission path of a multimedia service; and

obtain an expected multimedia encoding rate according to a preset multimedia resource decision policy and by using the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service, expected quality of experience (QoE) of the multimedia service, and a current multimedia encoding rate as input parameters, wherein the expected multimedia encoding rate is used as a reference for adjusting the current multimedia encoding rate; and

the network resource control server is configured to;

determine the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service according to a request sent from the multimedia resource control server, and return the available network bandwidth to the multimedia resource control server.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service is a minimum value of available bandwidths of multiple physical links on the transmission path of the multimedia service.

8. The system of claim 6, further comprising:

a network device, configured to receive the expected media encoding rate sent from the multimedia resource control server, and output a multimedia service corresponding to the expected multimedia encoding rate.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the network device is a multimedia server configured to adjust and regenerate multimedia resources.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the network device is a network device configured to adjust and regenerate multimedia resources.

12. The multimedia resource control server of claim 9, further comprising:

a querying unit, configured to query for and obtain the expected QoE of the multimedia service according to a multimedia service request or a multimedia service QoE improvement request.

11. A multimedia resource control server, comprising an obtaining unit and a multimedia resource deciding unit, wherein:

the obtaining unit is configured to obtain an available network bandwidth corresponding to a transmission path of a multimedia service, expected quality of experience (QoE), and a current multimedia encoding rate, and send the obtained information to the multimedia resource deciding unit; and

the multimedia resource deciding unit is configured to receive the obtained information from the obtaining unit, and obtain an expected multimedia encoding rate according to a multimedia resource decision policy and by using the available network bandwidth corresponding to the transmission path of the multimedia service, the expected QoE, and the current multimedia encoding rate as input parameters, wherein the expected multimedia encoding rate is used as a reference for adjusting the current multimedia encoding rate.

13. The multimedia resource control server of claim 11, further comprising:

a requesting unit configured to request a user to send the expected QoE of the multimedia service if the querying unit fails to find the expected QoE of the multimedia service.