APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SIMULCAST OVER A VARIABLE BANDWIDTH CHANNEL

• US 20130219440A1
• Filed: 03/28/2013
• Published: 08/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Campana, David Anthony, Boyce, Jill MacDonald, Sridhar, Avinash, Anthru, Shemimon Manallkudy
• Granted Patent: US 9,313,553 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23439 for generating different versions
• 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 21/6131 involving transmission via a mobile phone network wireless downlink channel access H04W74/006
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/65 Transmission of management data between client and server

Abstract

A method comprising the steps of outputting periodically a schedule for a transmission of a plurality of multimedia contents to a client receiver over a unidirectional data communication channel; transmitting said schedule to said client receiver over said communication channel before said transmission of said plurality of multimedia contents, said schedule including a metadata indicating a plurality of broadcast times for respective ones of said plurality of multimedia contents for selectively activating said client receiver in accordance with said plurality of broadcast times; estimating first and second available bandwidths of said communication channel at respective ones of first and second points in time; selecting one multimedia content file of a given compression level for transmission in response to a change of available bandwidth of said communication channel between said first and second points in time so that said plurality of multimedia contents may be received at said client receiver in accordance with respective ones of said plurality of broadcast times; and transmitting said selected multimedia content file to said client receiver.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A method comprising the steps of:

outputting periodically a schedule for a transmission of a plurality of multimedia contents to a client receiver over a unidirectional data communication channel;

transmitting said schedule to said client receiver over said communication channel before said transmission of said plurality of multimedia contents, said schedule including a metadata indicating a plurality of broadcast times for respective ones of said plurality of multimedia contents for selectively activating said client receiver in accordance with said plurality of broadcast times;

estimating first and second available bandwidths of said communication channel at respective ones of first and second points in time;

selecting one multimedia content file of a given compression level for transmission in response to a change of available bandwidth of said communication channel between said first and second points in time so that said plurality of multimedia contents may be received at said client receiver in accordance with respective ones of said plurality of broadcast times; and

transmitting said selected multimedia content file to said client receiver.

24. An apparatus comprising:

a scheduler including a transmission monitor operative to output a schedule periodically for a transmission of a plurality of multimedia contents to a client receiver over a unidirectional data communication channel,

said schedule including a metadata indicating a plurality of broadcast times for respective ones of said plurality of multimedia contents; and

a server coupled to said scheduler operative to transmit said schedule to a client receiver over said communication channel before a transmission of said plurality of multimedia contents for selectively activating said client receiver in accordance with said plurality of broadcast times,

said transmission monitor operative to control said server for a transmission of said plurality of multimedia contents to said client receiver over said communication channel in accordance with said schedule,

said transmission monitor operative to estimate first and second available bandwidths of said communication channel at respective ones of first and second points in time,

said scheduler operative to select one multimedia content file of a given compression level for transmission in response to a change of available bandwidth of said communication channel between said first and second points in time so that said plurality of multimedia contents may be received at said client receiver in accordance with respective ones of said plurality of broadcast times,

said server operative to transmit said selected multimedia content file to said client receiver.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein

said transmission of said selected multimedia content file is a re-transmission of a previously-transmitted content at a different compression level.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein

said multimedia file includes at least one of video and audio tents.

27. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein

said data communication channel includes at least one of wired and wireless connection paths.