LOCALIZED REDUNDANCY FOR FRAGMENT PROCESSING

• US 20130064305A1
• Filed: 09/14/2011
• Published: 03/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TiVo Corporation (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MobiTV Incorporated (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Karlsson, Kent, Barnes, Fritz, Wong, Ian, Hllmarker, Ola
• Granted Patent: US 9,197,900 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.26
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/177 the unit being a group of pictures [GOP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/30 using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability H04N19/63 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/42 characterised by implementation details or hardware specially adapted for video compression or decompression, e.g. dedicated software implementation H04N19/635 takes precedence

Abstract

A live media stream encoding system encodes live media streams into numerous variants of the live media streams each including multiple fragments. Live media streams are delineated, dispatched as jobs, and converted using distributed and dynamically scalable encoder and fragmenter resources without using any centralized encoding management system. Encoded fragments are maintained in shared storage and accessed as needed by devices during playback. Localized redundancy and/or geographic redundancy is provided throughout the system to prevent disruption upon failure of a particular node.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a first portion of a live media stream at a first work dispatcher included in a first data center;

generating a first job associated with encoding and fragmenting the first portion of the live media stream, wherein the first job is placed in an active job queue and a standby job queue, wherein a plurality of redundant encoder and fragmenter resources are operable to obtain the first job from the active job queue to generate a first plurality of encoded fragments corresponding to a first variant of the first portion of the live media stream;

maintaining the first plurality of encoded fragments in distributed storage;

providing a plurality of devices with access to the first plurality of encoded fragments by using a plurality of fragment servers.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first portion of the live media stream is also received at a second work dispatcher included in a second data center geographically separated from the first data center.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first work dispatcher is included in a first plurality of redundant dispatchers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of redundant encoder and fragmenter resources are a plurality of virtual machines configured to perform encoding and fragmentation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first portion of the live media stream is a first group of pictures (GOP).

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first variant is a version corresponding to a first resolution.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of jobs corresponding to a plurality of variants are placed in the active job queue at the first data center.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein fewer variants are encoded and fragmented at the second data center for the first portion of the live media stream.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein local failures are handled with localized redundancy while catastrophic failures are handled with geographic redundancy.

10. A system, comprising:

an interface configured to receive a first portion of a live media stream at a first work dispatcher included in a first data center;

a processor configured to generate a first job associated with encoding and fragmenting the first portion of the live media stream, wherein the first job is placed in an active job queue and a standby job queue, wherein a plurality of redundant encoder and fragmenter resources are operable to obtain the first job from the active job queue to generate a first plurality of encoded fragments corresponding to a first variant of the first portion of the live media stream;

distributed storage configured to maintain the first plurality of encoded fragments;

wherein a plurality of devices are provided with access to the first plurality of encoded fragments by using a plurality of fragment servers.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the first portion of the live media stream is also received at a second work dispatcher included in a second data center geographically separated from the first data center.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the first work dispatcher is included in a first plurality of redundant dispatchers.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the plurality of redundant encoder and fragmenter resources are a plurality of virtual machines configured to perform encoding and fragmentation.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the first portion of the live media stream is a first group of pictures (GOP).

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the first variant is a version corresponding to a first resolution.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein a plurality of jobs corresponding to a plurality of variants are placed in the active job queue at the first data center.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein fewer variants are encoded and fragmented at the second data center for the first portion of the live media stream.

18. The system of claim 10, wherein local failures are handled with localized redundancy while catastrophic failures are handled with geographic redundancy.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

means for receiving a first portion of a live media stream at a first work dispatcher included in a first data center;

means for generating a first job associated with encoding and fragmenting the first portion of the live media stream, wherein the first job is placed in an active job queue and a standby job queue, wherein a plurality of redundant encoder and fragmenter resources are operable to obtain the first job from the active job queue to generate a first plurality of encoded fragments corresponding to a first variant of the first portion of the live media stream;

means for maintaining the first plurality of encoded fragments in distributed storage;

means for providing a plurality of devices with access to the first plurality of encoded fragments by using a plurality of fragment servers.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first portion of the live media stream is also received at a second work dispatcher included in a second data center geographically separated from the first data center.