System and Method for Providing Network Access to Antenna Feeds

• US 20120127374A1
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Published: 05/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Charter Communications Operating LLC (Charter Communications Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Aereo Incorporated
• Inventors: Kanojia, Chaitanya, Lipowski, Joseph Thaddeus
• Granted Patent: US 9,131,276 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/731
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/57 for mobile receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/51 of receiving stations
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/70 using geographical information, e.g. maps, charts or atlases
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2143 located in a single building, e.g. hotel, hospital or museum arrangements specially adapted for plural spots in a confined site in broadcast systems H04H20/63; adaptations for transmission by electric cable for domestic distribution in television systems H04N7/106
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2221 being a cable television head-end CATV in broadcast systems H04H20/78
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2335 involving reformatting operations of audio signals, e.g. by converting from one coding standard to another details of audio signal transcoding G10L19/173
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25841 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; arrangements for identifying locations of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/51; location of the user terminal in data switching networks H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25866 Management of end-user data customer care in data networks H04L41/5077
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2747 Remote storage of video programs received via the downstream path, e.g. from the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4126 The peripheral being portable, e.g. PDAs or mobile phones
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4341 Demultiplexing of audio and video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4347 Demultiplexing of several video streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43637 involving a wireless protocol, e.g. Bluetooth, RF or wireless LAN [IEEE 802.11] arrangements for wireless networking or broadcasting of information in indoor or near-field type systems H04B10/114
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6112 involving terrestrial transmission, e.g. DVB-T
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/455 : Demodulation-circuits

Abstract

A method and system for capturing, storing, and streaming over the air broadcasts based on user requests is disclosed. The system and method utilize subarrays of antenna elements for receiving over the air broadcasts. Processing pipelines are used to demodulate, transcode and index the content transmissions to produce content data that are streamed to users. In this way, the feeds from antennas can be accessed by users over a network connection.

Claims

1. A method of streaming content transmissions from over the air broadcasts to user devices, the method comprising:

presenting users with a list of available content transmissions;

receiving requests from the users to receive selected content transmissions among the available content transmissions;

receiving the selected content transmission with antenna elements for each individual user; and

streaming the selected content transmissions to the user devices.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising tuning the antenna elements to receive the selected content transmissions from broadcasting entities.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising demodulating feeds from the antenna elements to generate content transmission data.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising transcoding the content transmission data to a different encoding.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the content transmission data are transcoded from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 encoding.

6. The method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising transcoding the content transmission data to a two or more different resolutions.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, further comprising streaming the transcoded content transmission data to the user devices with a resolution determined based on resolution of the user devices.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing the selected content transmissions in file store prior to streaming the selected content transmissions to the users.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the file store stores the selected content transmissions in a separate location for each individual user.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising assigning the antenna elements to the users from available antenna elements based on which antenna elements are optimized to receive the selected content transmissions of the users.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the list of available content transmissions is based on the over the air broadcasts available in a geographical location of each of the users.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein users are only streamed the selected content transmission received by the antenna element selected for each individual user.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising assigning antenna elements on the fly as users request content transmissions.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising dedicating antenna elements to users that are used to fulfill the requests for content transmissions.

15. A system for streaming content transmissions to user devices, the system comprising:

an application server presenting users with a list of available content transmissions, wherein the application server receives requests from the user devices to receive selected content transmissions among the available content transmissions;

an antenna controller that controls antenna elements to receive the selected content transmissions for each individual user; and

a streaming server that streams the selected content transmissions as content data to the user devices.

16. The system as claimed in claim 15, further comprising tuners for tuning the antenna elements to receive the selected content transmissions from broadcasting entities under the control of antenna controller.

17. The system as claimed in claim 15, further comprising demodulators for demodulating and decoding feeds from the antenna elements to generate content data.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17, further comprising transcoders for converting the content transmission data to a different encoding.

19. The system as claimed in claim 18, wherein the content transmission data are converted from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 encoding by the transcoders.

20. The system as claimed in claim 18, wherein the transcoders convert the content transmission data to a two or more different resolutions.

21. The system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the streaming server streams the transcoded content data to the user devices with a resolution determined based on resolution of the user devices.

22. The system according to claim 15, further comprising a file store for storing the content data prior to streaming the user devices.

23. The system according to claim 22, wherein the file store stores the content data in a separate location for each individual user.

24. The system according to claim 15, further comprising the antenna controller assigning the antenna elements to users from available antenna elements based on which antenna elements are optimized to receive the selected content transmissions.

25. The system according to claim 15, wherein application server provides the list of available content transmissions based on the over the air broadcasts available in a geographical location of each of the users.

26. The system according to claim 15, wherein users are only streamed the selected content transmission received by the antenna element selected for each individual user.

27. The system according to claim 15, wherein the antenna controller assigns the antenna elements on the fly as users request content transmissions.

28. The system according to claim 15, wherein the antenna controller dedicates the antenna elements to users that are used to fulfill the requests for content transmissions.

29. A system for capturing over the air broadcasts, the system comprising:

subarrays of antenna elements for receiving over the air broadcasts of content transmissions, each sub array of antenna elements being optimized to receive over the air broadcasts from different broadcasting entities;

an application server that receives user requests for content transmissions from the broadcasting entities; and

an antenna controller that assigns individual antenna elements to each of the users based on which subarray of antenna elements is optimized to detect the broadcasting entities generating the content transmissions requested by the users.

30. A method for capturing over the air broadcasts, the method comprising:

receiving over the air broadcasts of content transmissions with subarrays of antenna elements, each subarray of antenna elements being optimized to receive over the air broadcasts from different broadcasting entities;

receiving user requests for content transmissions from the broadcasting entities; and

assigning individual antenna elements among from the subarrays to receive the content transmissions for each of the individual users based on which of the subarrays is optimized to detect the broadcasting entities generating the content transmissions.

31. A system for streaming content transmissions to user devices, the system comprising:

an application server presenting users with a list of available content transmissions, wherein the application server receives requests from the user devices to receive selected content transmissions among the available content transmissions;

an antenna controller that controls antenna elements to receive the selected content transmissions for each individual user and assigns antenna elements that are currently not being used by users to receive content transmissions that it anticipates that users will want to watch in the future; and

a streaming server that streams the selected content transmissions as content data to the user devices, and when a user desires to watch one of the anticipated content transmissions, the content data that are generated by the feed from the antenna elements are allocated to that user and streamed to that user.