Reconstruction of errored media streams in a communication system

• US 8,081,635 B2
• Filed: 10/08/2008
• Issued: 12/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Inventors: Bekiares, Tyrone D., Keller, Matthew C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilson, Robert
• Application Number:
  US12/247,360
• Publication Number:
  US 20100085963A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/394
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A method for reconstructing and reproducing a received media stream while minimizing storage space is presented. The media stream transmitted by a transmitting device is uploaded to an external storage device. Metadata including packetization mapping information, missing packets not received by the receiving device, and reproduction time at the receiving device are also uploaded to the storage device. The storage device stores the missing packets and reproduction time of each receiving device if the same media stream is received by multiple devices. The data in the storage device is used to reconstruct the received media stream and reproduce the end user experience.

Claims

1. A method of reconstructing a reproduction of a media stream that was received by a media stream sink, the method comprising:

receiving a source media stream and source metadata from a media stream source, wherein the source metadata comprises, for each source media stream packet transmitted by the media stream source to the media stream sink, at least one mapping of a range of source media stream bits to a packet number;

receiving sink metadata from a media stream sink, wherein the sink metadata comprises at least one of;

a list of the packet numbers identifying the source media stream packets that were not present when the media stream sink decoded the source media stream packets, or

a list of the packet numbers identifying the source media stream packets that were present when the media stream sink decoded the source media stream packets; and

reconstructing the reproduction of the media stream that was received by the media stream sink using the source media stream, the source metadata and the sink metadata.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sink metadata further comprises at least one relative or absolute reproduction time corresponding to a time when at least one source media stream packet was reproduced at the media stream sink.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sink metadata further comprises at least one environmental setting of the media stream sink corresponding to a time when the at least one source media stream packet was reproduced at the media stream sink.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reconstructing a plurality of media streams received by different media stream sinks, the source media stream packets having been transmitted to the different media stream sinks, each of the different media stream sinks having uploaded its sink metadata to an external storage, and the media stream source having uploaded the source metadata and the source media stream to the external storage.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the source metadata, the source media stream, and the sink metadata are validated and authenticated prior to the step of reconstructing.

6. A method of reconstructing a reproduction of a media stream that was received by a media stream sink comprising:

at a media stream source;

acquiring an original media stream;

encoding at least a portion of the original media stream to form an encoded media stream;

uploading the encoded media stream to an external storage; and

transmitting the encoded media stream to the media stream sink;

at the media stream sink;

receiving the encoded media stream;

decoding the encoded media stream to form a decoded media stream;

uploading sink metadata to the external storage, the sink metadata comprises at least one of;

portion of the encoded media stream that was not present when the media stream sink decoded the encoded media stream, or a portion of the encoded media stream that was present when the media stream sink decoded the encoded media stream; and

at a reconstruction device;

reconstructing the reproduction of the media stream that was received by the media stream sink using the encoded media stream uploaded by the media stream source and the sink metadata uploaded by the media stream sink.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of encoding comprises compression and packetization of the original media stream,

wherein the step of decoding comprises de-compression and de-packetization of the encoded media stream,

wherein the encoded media stream includes transmitted packets,

wherein the sink metadata comprises at least one of a list of packet numbers identifying the transmitted packets that were not present when the media stream sink decoded the transmitted packets, or a list of the packet numbers identifying the transmitted packets that were present when the media stream sink decoded the transmitted packets, and the method further comprises uploading source metadata by the media stream source, the source metadata comprises at least one mapping of a range of compressed original media stream bits to a packet number, and wherein

the source metadata uploaded by the media stream source is used at the reconstruction device when reconstructing the reproduction of the media stream that was received by the media stream sink.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of reconstructing further comprising:

using the at least one mapping from the source metadata to reconstruct the transmitted packets;

using the sink metadata to remove the transmitted packets that were not present when the media stream decoded the transmitted packets to form a modified set of transmitted packets; and

decoding the modified set of transmitted packets; and

reproducing the decoded modified set of transmitted packets.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the source metadata, the encoded media stream, and the sink metadata are validated and authenticated prior to the step of reconstructing.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the sink metadata further comprises at least one relative or absolute reproduction time corresponding to a time when at least one portion of the decoded media stream was reproduced by the media stream sink.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the sink metadata further comprises at least one environmental setting of the media stream sink corresponding to a time when the at least one portion of the decoded media stream was reproduced by the media stream sink.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising the media stream source transmitting the encoded media stream to a plurality of the media stream sinks, each media stream sink uploading its sink metadata to the external storage, and reconstructing the reproduction of the media stream that was received by each of the plurality of media stream sinks using the encoded media stream uploaded by the media stream source and each sink metadata uploaded by each of the plurality of media stream sinks.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the uploading of at least one of the encoded media stream or the sink metadata occurs at a predetermined time.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of uploading at least one of the encoded media stream or the sink metadata occurs based on network traffic, or when a particular physical connection is made to the media stream source or the media stream sink containing the encoded media stream or sink metadata, respectively.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of uploading at least one of the encoded media stream or sink metadata occurs based on memory considerations of the media stream source or the media stream sink containing the encoded media stream or sink metadata, respectively.