Real-time or near real-time streaming with compressed playlists

• US 8,280,863 B2
• Filed: 03/30/2012
• Issued: 10/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Pantos, Roger, Batson, James David
• Primary Examiner(s): Bétit, Jacob F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shanmugasundaram, Kannan
• Application Number:
  US13/436,131
• Publication Number:
  US 20120191870A1
• Time in Patent Office: 186 Days
• Field of Search: 707/693, 707/736, 707/913, 707/91, 707999001-999005
• US Class Current: 707/693
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234327 by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234363 by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for clients with a lower screen resolution
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• 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 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/916 Audio

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses provide real-time or near real-time streaming of content using transfer protocols such as an HTTP compliant protocol. In one embodiment, a method includes providing a request for a playlist file (e.g. an updated playlist) and specifying a compression protocol with or for the request; the request can come from a client device which is requesting the playlist from a web server. The web server can provide the playlist in a compressed format.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing executable program instructions that when executed by a data processing system cause the data processing system to perform a method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a playlist file, for a program, over a network using a transfer protocol, wherein the requesting specifies at least one compression protocol, wherein the compression protocol is compatible with a standards based HTTP implementation of the transfer protocol and wherein the compression protocol is one of deflate or gzip;

receiving, with the client device, the playlist file which is compressed according to the at least one compression protocol, the playlist file having Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) indicating a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files and decompressing, with the client device, the playlist file;

using the transfer protocol, requesting one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the requested playlist file;

receiving the one or more requested media files over the network using the transfer protocol;

generating an audio and/or video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file;

determining, with the client device, whether the playlist file includes an end of list tag in the playlist file, which indicates that no more media files will be added to the playlist file;

requesting, with the client device, an updated playlist file for the program, the requesting specifying the at least one compression protocol, wherein the requesting of the updated playlist file is in response to determining that the end of list tag is not included in the playlist file; and

receiving, with the client device, the updated playlist file in a compressed format and decompressing the updated playlist file which includes the URIs for the media files in the playlist file and new URIs for new media files not in the playlist file, wherein the client device uses the playlist file before receiving the updated playlist file.

2. The medium as in claim 1 wherein the playlist file is a text file.

3. The medium as in claim 2 wherein the order of the media files in the playlist file represents the order of presentation and wherein the playlist file includes a duration for each media file and the duration for a corresponding media file precedes each corresponding media file.

4. The medium as in claim 1 wherein the use of the compression protocol by a server is optional.

5. A machine implemented method comprising:

requesting, with a client device, a playlist file, for a program, over a network using a transfer protocol, wherein the requesting specifies at least one compression protocol, wherein the compression protocol is compatible with a standards based HTTP implementation of the transfer protocol and wherein the compression protocol is one of deflate or gzip;

receiving, with the client device, the playlist file which is compressed according to the at least one compression protocol, the playlist file having Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) indicating a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files and decompressing, with the client device, the playlist file;

using the transfer protocol, requesting one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the requested playlist file;

receiving the one or more requested media files over the network using the transfer protocol;

generating an audio and/or video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file;

determining, with the client device, whether the playlist file includes an end of list tag in the playlist file, which indicates that no more media files will be added to the playlist file;

requesting, with the client device, an updated playlist file for the program, the requesting specifying the at least one compression protocol, wherein the requesting of the updated playlist file is in response to determining that the end of list tag is not included in the playlist file; and

receiving, with the client device, the updated playlist file in a compressed format and decompressing the updated playlist file which includes the URIs for the media files in the playlist file and new URIs for new media files not in the playlist file, wherein the client device uses the playlist file before receiving the updated playlist file.

6. The method as in claim 5 wherein the playlist file is a text file.

7. The method as in claim 6 wherein the order of the media files in the playlist file represents the order of presentation and wherein the playlist file includes a duration for each media file and the duration for a corresponding media file precedes each corresponding media file.

8. The method as in claim 5 wherein the use of the compression protocol by a server is optional.

9. A machine readable non-transitory storage medium storing executable program instructions that when executed by a data processing system cause the data processing system to perform a method comprising:

receiving, through a network using a transfer protocol, a request for a playlist file for a program, the request specifying, in a transmission from a client device, at least one compression protocol, wherein the compression protocol is compatible with a standards based HTTP implementation of the transfer protocol and wherein the compression protocol is one of deflate or gzip;

determining whether to include an end of list tag in the playlist file based on whether an updated playlist file for the program will be made available after the playlist file is made available, the end of list tag indicating that no more media files will be added to the playlist file, wherein the playlist file includes URIs indicating a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files, and wherein the order of the media files in the playlist represents the order of presentation and wherein the playlist includes a duration for each media file and the duration for a corresponding media file precedes each corresponding media file;

transmitting, to the client device, the playlist file in a compressed format using the at least one compression protocol, wherein the playlist file does not include the end of list tag;

receiving, from the client device, a request for one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file;

sending, to the client device, the one or more requested media files over the network using the transfer protocol, the client device generating an audio and/or video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file;

receiving, from the client device, a request for the updated playlist file, the request specifying the at least one compression protocol; and

transmitting the updated playlist file to the client device in the compressed format, wherein the updated playlist file includes URIs for the media files in the playlist file and new URIs for new media files not in the playlist file.

10. A machine implemented method comprising:

receiving, through a network using a transfer protocol, a request for a playlist file for a program, the request specifying, in a transmission from a client device, at least one compression protocol, wherein the compression protocol is compatible with a standards based HTTP implementation of the transfer protocol and wherein the compression protocol is one of deflate or gzip;

determining whether to include an end of list tag in the playlist file based on whether an updated playlist file for the program will be made available after the playlist file is made available, the end of list tag indicating that no more media files will be added to the playlist file, wherein the playlist file includes URIs indicating a plurality of media files and a plurality of tags having parameters related to playback of the plurality of media files, and wherein the order of the media files in the playlist represents the order of presentation and wherein the playlist includes a duration for each media file and the duration for a corresponding media file precedes each corresponding media file;

transmitting, to the client device, the playlist file in a compressed format using the at least one compression protocol, wherein the playlist file does not include the end of list tag;

receiving, from the client device, a request for one or more of the media files in an order indicated by the playlist file;

sending, to the client device, the one or more requested media files over the network using the transfer protocol, the client device generating an audio and/or video output representing the stream of content by playing the media files with the client device in the order indicated by the playlist file;

receiving, from the client device, a request for the updated playlist file, the request specifying the at least one compression protocol; and

transmitting the updated playlist file to the client device in the compressed format, wherein the updated playlist file includes URIs for the media files in the playlist file and new URIs for new media files not in the playlist file.