US 10,652,304 B1Granted

Instantaneous egress management service

AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.

InventorsOlaf Nielsen, James Ka Sin Au

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Quality parameters, such as encoding bitrate, can be determined for the providing of media content based at least in part upon aggregate consumption data. An unknown number of media players can obtain content at a bitrate that depends upon network conditions, and encoders can use variable bitrate encoding, such that egress bandwidth usage can vary widely over time. Aggregate consumption data can be obtained for the various client devices to project the egress costs for a particular period. If the projected resources deviate unacceptably from the target for the period, new quality setting values can be determined, such as new maximum, minimum, target bitrate, or target quality values for the various quality levels. These settings can be automatically applied or suggested to customers, who can then accept any or all of the suggestions, or choose to adjust at least some of the settings based on the suggestions or cost projections.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

obtaining input media content to be available in a set of quality levels;
receiving a set of first quality level values for the input media content;
encoding, via one or more encoders, the input media content to a set of output media content each having a respective level of the set of quality levels, the bitrate settings for the quality levels determined using a rate control model and the first quality level values;
providing the set of output media content to a content distribution service, wherein each of the output media content is distributed via a corresponding media channel;
determining an instantaneous egress bandwidth aggregated across the output media content by analyzing the viewership data collected from a plurality of viewing devices;
determining that the instantaneous egress bandwidth is within an unacceptable range of a maximum aggregated egress value for the output media content provided to the content distribution service;
notifying a multiplexer controller of a need to reduce the instantaneous egress bandwidth;
determining, via the multiplexer controller, a reduced maximum bitrate value for a highest quality level of the set of quality levels;
determining, via the multiplexer controller, a subset of the output media content based at least in part on a priority level of the media channel of the output media content;
notifying, via the multiplexer controller, the corresponding encoders of the subset of the output media to apply the reduced maximum bitrate value for the subset of the output media;
and
causing the reduced maximum bitrate value to be applied for at least the subset of the output media content in order to reduce the instantaneous egress bandwidth.

9 more elements

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

obtaining input media content;
encoding, via one or more encoders, the input media content to a set of output media content encoded using a set of quality levels having different quality values, the different quality levels including a first maximum bitrate value;
determining instantaneous egress bandwidth for the set of output media content by analyzing viewership data collected from a plurality of viewing devices;
determining that the instantaneous egress bandwidth is above an acceptable bandwidth threshold with respect to an instantaneous egress bandwidth cap for the output media content;
determining a subset of the output media content based at least in part on a priority level of a media channel of the output media content;
notifying a multiplexer controller of a need to reduce the instantaneous egress bandwidth;
and
causing a lower maximum bitrate value to be applied to the encoding for at least the subset of the output media content determined by the multiplexer controller while the instantaneous egress bandwidth is above the acceptable bandwidth threshold,
wherein causing a lower maximum bitrate value to be applied to the encoding for at least the subset of the output media content determined by the multiplexer controller includes notifying, via the multiplexer controller, the corresponding encoders of the subset of the output media to apply the reduced maximum bitrate value for the subset of the output media.

6 more elements

A system, comprising:

at least one processor;
and
memory including instructions that, when executed by the system, cause the system to:
obtain input media content;
encode, via one or more encoders, the input media content to a set of output media content encoded using a set of quality levels having different quality values, the different quality levels including a first maximum bitrate value;
determine instantaneous egress bandwidth for the set of output media content by analyzing viewership data collected from a plurality of viewing devices;
determine that the instantaneous egress bandwidth is above an acceptable bandwidth threshold with respect to an instantaneous egress bandwidth cap for the output media content;
determine a subset of the output media content based at least in part on a priority level of a media channel of the output media content;
notify a multiplexer controller of a need to reduce the instantaneous egress bandwidth;
and
cause a lower maximum bitrate value to be applied to the encoding for at least the subset of the output media content determined by the multiplexer controller while the instantaneous egress bandwidth is above the acceptable bandwidth threshold,
wherein causing a lower maximum bitrate value to be applied to the encoding for at least the subset of the output media content determined by the multiplexer controller includes notifying, via the multiplexer controller, the corresponding encoders of the subset of the output media to apply the reduced maximum bitrate value for the subset of the output media.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.