AUDIO VIDEO STREAMING SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20140168354A1
• Filed: 12/19/2013
• Published: 06/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rabbit Asset Purchase Corp. (Live Current Media, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rabbit, Inc.
• Inventors: Clavel, Philippe, Zaitsev, Timophey, Birrer, Stefan, Francois, Alexandre
• Granted Patent: US 9,369,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/14.09
• 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 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/152 Multipoint control units therefor

Abstract

A method for supporting a plurality of participants with an audio-video conferencing system including a tracking server and a plurality of streaming servers, the method including: at the tracking server, sending conversation group information to a first device associated with a first user identifier, the conversation group information including a second user identifier and a streaming server identifier for the second user identifier; at a streaming server identified by the streaming server identifier, receiving a second audio stream and a second video stream from a second device associated with the second user identifier, and in response to receipt of the second user identifier from the first device, sending the second audio stream and second video stream to the first device.

Claims

1. A method for supporting a plurality of participants with an audio-video conferencing system including a tracking server and a plurality of streaming servers, the method comprising:

at the tracking server;

sending conversation group information to a first device associated with a first user identifier, the conversation group information comprising a second user identifier and a streaming server identifier for the second user identifier;

at a streaming server identified by the streaming server identifier;

receiving a second audio stream and a second video stream from a second device associated with the second user identifier; and

in response to receipt of the second user identifier from the first device, sending the second audio stream and second video stream to the first device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, at the streaming server, sending an ambient audio stream to the first device with the first audio stream.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein sending an ambient audio stream to the first device with the first audio stream comprises, at the streaming server:

receiving a third audio stream and a third video stream from a third device associated with a third user identifier; and

mixing the second and third audio stream into the ambient stream.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

at the tracking server;

receiving an initiation request from the first device associated with the first user identifier;

associating the first user identifier with a second streaming server identifier; and

sending the second streaming server identifier to the first device;

at a second streaming server identified by the second streaming server identifier;

receiving a first audio stream and a first video stream from the first device in association with the first user identifier.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, at the tracking server:

assigning a first virtual location to the first user identifier;

determining a set of conversation groups having virtual positions proximal the first virtual location;

determining user identifiers associated with the conversation groups;

wherein sending the conversation group information to the first device comprises sending the virtual positions of the conversation groups and the user identifiers associated with each conversation group to the first device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining the set of conversation groups comprises determining a set of conversation groups within a predetermined virtual distance of the first virtual location

7. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the conversation group information to the first device further comprises sending a third user identifier and a third streaming server identifier to the first device, the method further comprising, at a third streaming server identified by the third streaming server identifier:

receiving a third audio stream and a third video stream from a third device associated with the third user identifier; and

in response to receipt of the third user identifier from the first device, sending the third audio stream and third video stream to the first device.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising associating the second user identifier and third user identifier with the conversation group.

9. The method of 1, wherein the tracking server comprises a stateful server and the streaming server comprises a stateless server.

10. A method for audio-video conferencing with a plurality of participants, comprising:

at a device comprising a display and audio output;

receiving from a tracking server;

a first user identifier associated with a first streaming server identifier and a first conversation group; and

a second user identifier associated with a second streaming server identifier and the first conversation group;

sending a first request comprising the first user identifier to a first streaming server identified by the first streaming server identifier and a second request comprising the second user identifier to a second streaming server identified by the second streaming server identifier;

receiving a first audio stream and a first video stream associated with the first user identifier from the first streaming server and a second audio stream and a second video stream associated with the second user identifier from the second streaming server;

mixing the first and second audio streams into a final stream;

displaying the first and second video streams on the display; and

playing the final stream from the audio output.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving a first audio stream and a second audio stream from the first and second streaming servers, respectively, further comprises receiving an ambient audio stream from the first streaming server, wherein mixing the first and second audio streams into a final stream further comprises mixing the ambient audio stream into the final stream.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving an ambient audio stream comprises receiving the ambient audio stream from the first streaming server in response to selecting the first streaming server as an ambient audio stream provider and requesting the ambient audio stream from the first streaming server.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

in response to detection of an initiation event, querying a plurality of tracking servers, the plurality of tracking servers comprising the first tracking server;

receiving conversation group information for a set of conversation groups, the set of conversation groups comprising a conversation group from each of the plurality of tracking servers, the conversation group information comprising a set of user identifiers and streaming server identifiers associated with each user identifier;

requesting and receiving audio and video streams corresponding to the user identifiers associated with the set of conversation groups from streaming servers identified by the streaming server identifiers;

selecting a representative video stream for each of the set of conversation groups, each representative video stream comprising a video stream associated with a user identifier of the conversation group;

mixing the audio streams into a second final stream;

displaying the representative video streams on the display;

playing the second final stream;

in response to receipt of a user selection of a representative video stream, querying the tracking server from which the respective conversation group information was received, wherein the first and second user identifiers are received in response to the query.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the set of conversation groups are selected by the tracking servers.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising selecting a subset of conversation groups from the set of conversation groups received from the tracking servers, the subset of conversation groups comprising conversation groups within different virtual conversation rooms.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the set of conversation groups are selected based on user preferences stored by the tracking server in association with the user.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

in response to detection of an initiation event, querying the tracking server;

receiving a third streaming server identifier;

capturing audio and video at the device; and

streaming the audio and video to a third streaming server identified by the third streaming server identifier.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising synchronizing the first audio stream with the first video stream and the second audio stream with the second video stream at the user device.

19. A method for audio-video conferencing with a plurality of participants, comprising:

at a device comprising a display and audio output;

requesting and receiving conversation group information for a set of conversation groups from the tracking server, the set of conversation groups comprising a display quantity of conversation groups, each conversation group information comprising user information of participants within the respective conversation group, the user information for each participant comprising a user identifier and a streaming server identifier;

receiving audio and video streams associated with each of the user identifiers from streaming servers identified by the respective streaming server identifiers in response to requests sent to the streaming servers including the respective user identifiers;

selecting a first conversation group from the set of conversation groups;

dampening the audio streams associated with user identifiers external the first conversation group;

mixing the audio streams associated with the user identifiers within the first conversation group with the dampened audio streams into a final stream;

concurrently displaying the video streams associated with the user identifiers within the first conversation group and a representative video stream for each of the secondary conversation groups on the display, the representative video stream comprising a video stream associated with a user identifier within the respective conversation group; and

playing the final stream.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the set of conversation groups comprises conversation groups in excess of the display quantity, the method further comprising:

selecting secondary conversation groups from the set of conversation groups, wherein a total number of selected conversation groups comprising the first conversation group and the secondary conversation groups is equal to the display quantity;

wherein dampening the audio streams associated with user identifiers external the first conversation group comprises;

dampening the audio streams associated with user identifiers within the secondary conversation groups to a first degree; and

dampening the audio streams associated with user identifiers within unselected conversation groups to a second degree.