Qualified video delivery methods

• US 9,203,685 B1
• Filed: 05/17/2011
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Perry, David, Gault, Andrew Buchanan, Pereira, Rui Filipe Andrade
• Primary Examiner(s): Moise, Emmanuel L
• Assistant Examiner(s): ABU ROUMI, MAHRAN Y
• Application Number:
  US13/109,932
• Time in Patent Office: 1,659 Days
• Field of Search: 463/42, 709/231
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/00 Video games, i.e. games using an electronically generated display having two or more dimensions gaming systems which provide a financial reward G07F17/32
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/35 Details of game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/355 Performing operations on behalf of clients with restricted processing capabilities, e.g. servers transform changing game scene into an encoded video stream for transmitting to a mobile phone or a thin client
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/42 by mapping the input signals into game commands, e.g. mapping the displacement of a stylus on a touch screen to the steering angle of a virtual vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/537 using indicators, e.g. showing the condition of a game character on screen
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/71 using secure communication between game devices and game servers, e.g. by encrypting game data or authenticating players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/795 for finding other players; for building a team; for providing a buddy list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/86 Watching games played by other players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/407 Data transfer via internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/51 Server architecture
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/538 for performing operations on behalf of the game client, e.g. rendering
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 : I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 : Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 : Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 : Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 : Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 : for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 : Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 : Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 : Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 : specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/136 : Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/44 : Decoders specially adapted therefor, e.g. video decoders which are asymmetric with respect to the encoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/46 : Embedding additional information in the video signal during the compression process H04N19/517, H04N19/68, H04N19/70 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/70 : characterised by syntax aspects related to video coding, e.g. related to compression standards

Abstract

A video server is configured to provide streaming video to players of computer games over a computing network. The video server can provided video of different games to different players simultaneously. This is accomplished by rendering several video streams in parallel using a single GPU. The output of the GPU is provided to graphics processing pipelines that are each associated with a specific client/player and are dynamically allocated as needed. A client qualifier may be used to assure that only clients capable of presenting the streaming video to a player at a minimum level of quality receive the video stream.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a client to display an object, the object being configured to allow a user of the client to play a video game;

testing the client to determine if the client is qualified to receive a streaming video of the game;

qualifying the client to receive the streaming video, wherein qualifying the client includes comparing results of the testing with minimum requirements for delivery of the streaming video of the game, and wherein qualifying the client includes determining a video decoder type present at the client;

selecting a video server system from among a plurality of geographically distributed video server systems to provide streaming video to the client based on which of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems is qualified to provide the streaming video to the client, the selected video server system including a graphics processing unit for rendering the streaming video of the game, the selected video server system defined to access a shared memory to store the streaming video of the game rendered by the graphics processing unit, contents of the streaming video being dependent on game commands received from the client and game logic of the video game included in the selected video server system;

dynamically provisioning an encoding pipeline after qualifying the client to encode video data of the streaming video in a video format for use by the client, wherein the encoding pipeline is dynamically provisioned to include an encoder that is compatible with the video decoder type present at the client as determined through qualifying of the client;

detecting an adverse condition associated with providing the streaming video to the client; and

in response to detecting the adverse condition, selecting a different encoder for use within the encoding pipeline, wherein the different encoder is compatible with the video decoder type present at the client as determined through qualifying of the client.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client from which the request is received is a first client, the method further comprising adding a game player to the video game and repeating the step of selecting the video server system, the selection being further based on which of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems is qualified to provide streaming video to both the first client and a second client of the added game player.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing first and second video streams to the first and second clients respectively, wherein frames of the first and second video streams are produced at the same time using one graphics processing unit.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first and second video streams are produced using different cores of the one graphics processing unit.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems includes video server systems disposed in different cities.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising qualifying the second client for receipt of the second video stream prior to providing the second video stream to the second client.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising provisioning game logic configured to play the video game, in response to the request.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the game logic is provisioned after the client is qualified.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the object is configured for display within a web page.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the object includes one or more of text, an image, a link and a universal resource locator.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein testing the client includes testing a display latency between the client and two or more of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein testing the client includes testing a bandwidth between the client and at least one of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein qualification of the client is dependent on communication between a video server system and a plurality of clients used by players in a virtual game room.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the object to the client.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the object is provided to the client after the step of qualifying the client.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the object is displayed on the client during the step of testing the client, but the streaming video is not provided to the client until after the step of qualifying the client.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of testing the client includes use of an agent disposed on the client.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the object includes a banner advertisement.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the qualification is one of a plurality of alternative qualifications, each of the plurality of alternative qualifications requiring a different bandwidth to meet a minimum display latency requirement.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein testing the client includes testing a display latency between the client and at least one of the plurality of geographically distributed video server systems.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the video decoder type is designated as software or hardware.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying multiple encoders that are compatible with the video decoder type present at the client as determined through qualifying of the client, wherein dynamically provisioning the encoding pipeline includes implementing the multiple encoders for selective use within the encoding pipeline.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

selecting one of the multiple encoders for use within the encoding pipeline at a given time based on performance of a currently operating video decoder at the client.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the different encoder is one of the identified multiple encoders.