US 10,757,156 B2Granted

Apparatus, system, and method for adaptive-rate shifting of streaming content

AssigneeDISH Technologies L.L.C.

InventorsRobert Drew Major, Mark B. Hurst

Life of this patent

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Abstract

An apparatus for adaptive-rate shifting of streaming content includes an agent controller module configured to simultaneously request at least portions of a plurality of streamlets. The agent controller module is further configured to continuously monitor streamlet requests and subsequent responses, and accordingly request higher or lower quality streamlets. A staging module is configured to stage the streamlets and arrange the streamlets for playback on a content player. A system includes a data communications network, a content server coupled to the data communications network and having a content module configured to process content and generate a plurality of high and low quality streams, and the apparatus. A method includes simultaneously requesting at least portions of a plurality of streamlets, continuously monitoring streamlet requests and subsequent responses, and accordingly requesting higher or lower quality streamlets, and staging the streamlets and arranging the streamlets for playback on a content player.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An apparatus for rendering a video that is adaptively received as a digital stream from a video server over a network, the apparatus comprising;

a media player operating on the apparatus, wherein the media player is configured to stream the video from the video server via at least one transmission control protocol (TCP) connection over the network, wherein the video server stores multiple different copies of the video encoded at different bit rates as multiple sets of streamlets, wherein each of the streamlets yields a different portion of the video on playback, wherein the streamlets across the different copies yield the same portions of the video on playback, and wherein the streamlets in the different copies are aligned in time such that the streamlets that play back the same portion of the video for the different copies each begin at the same playback time in relation to the beginning of the video, and wherein the media player streams the video by:
requesting sequential streamlets of one of the copies from the video server according to the playback times of the streamlets by transmitting hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) GET requests that identify the selected streamlets stored by the video server, wherein the sequential streamlets are selected by the media player from the based upon successive determinations to shift the playback quality to a higher or lower quality one of the different copies of the video;
repeatedly generating, by the media player, a factor relating to the performance of the network that is indicative of an ability to sustain the streaming of the video;
adapting the successive determinations to shift the playback quality based on the factor to achieve continuous playback of the video using the streamlets of the highest quality copy of the video that is determined to be sustainable at that time;
and
presenting the video for playback by providing the requested streamlets in order of ascending start time.

3 more elements

A method executable by an end user device to stream a video received via a connection with a server over a network, the method comprising:

requesting, by the end user device, wherein the end user device streams the video from the video server via at least one transmission control protocol (TCP) connection over the network, a plurality of sequential streamlets of one of the copies from the server based on playback times of the streamlets wherein multiple different copies of the video encoded at different bit rates are stored as multiple sets of streamlets on the server, wherein each of the streamlets yields a different portion of the video on playback, wherein the streamlets across the different copies yield the same portions of the video on playback, and wherein each of the streamlets comprises a playback time such that each of the streamlets for each of the different copies that encode the same portion of the video begins at the same playback time in relation to the beginning of the video, wherein the end user device requests the streamlets by transmitting hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) GET requests that each identify one of the requested streamlets stored by the server;
and wherein the end user device streams the video by:
repeatedly generating, by the end user device, a factor that is indicative of an ability to sustain the streaming of the video;
making successive determinations by the end user device to shift the playback quality based on the factor to achieve continuous playback of the video using the streamlets of the highest quality copy determined sustainable at that time;
and
presenting the video by playing back the requested media streamlets on the end user device in order of ascending playback time.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/291,343Filed 4 Mar 2019 · continuation
Priority: 30 Apr 2004
Published: US 2019/0199768 A127 Jun 2019
Granted: 25 Aug 2020
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification22 codes

H04N 21/44016
Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing a video clip retrieved from local storage with an incoming video stream or rendering…
H04L 43/16
Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks: threshold monitoring
H04L 47/25
Flow control; Congestion control: with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
H04L 65/60
Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication: network streaming of media packets

Family

Application60/566,831Us provisional application · filed 30 Apr 2004
Application11/116,783Parent of this continuation · filed 28 Apr 2005
Application14/516,303Parent of this continuation · filed 16 Oct 2014
US 8,868,772 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 21 Oct 2014
Application15/207,172Parent of this continuation · filed 11 Jul 2016
US 9,407,564 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 2 Aug 2016
US 2019/0199768 A1Pre-grant publication · published 27 Jun 2019
US 10,225,304 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2005/0262257 A1Published application
US 2015/0039782 A1Published application
US 2016/0323341 A1Published application
US 10,757,156 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.