Crowdsourced prediction of CDN performance for zero buffer delivery of content

A method in a crowdsource server, comprising:

• receiving, from a media device, a request to identify a bit-rate variant of a secondary content among a plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content to stitch into a stream of a primary content;
• accessing records of prior downloads of the secondary content by a plurality of media devices, wherein the records were provided to the crowdsource server by the plurality of media devices in a crowdsourced manner;
• identifying a subset of the records of the prior downloads of the secondary content by the plurality of media devices that are relevant to the media device based on the request from the media device;
• generating a recommendation for the bit-rate variant of the secondary content among the plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content at a server among a plurality of servers to download by the media device based on the subset of the records;
• and
• providing the recommendation to the media device;
• wherein the media device downloads the recommended bit-rate variant of the secondary content from the server, and stitches the downloaded bit-rate variant of the secondary content into the stream of the primary content.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, cause the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, from a media device, a request to identify a bit-rate variant of a secondary content among a plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content to stitch into a stream of a primary content;
• accessing records of prior downloads of the secondary content by a plurality of media devices, wherein the records were provided to the crowdsource server by the plurality of media devices in a crowdsourced manner;
• identifying a subset of the records of the prior downloads of the secondary content by the plurality of media devices that are relevant to the media device based on the request from the media device;
• generating a recommendation for the bit-rate valiant of the secondary content among the plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content at a server among a plurality of servers to download by the media device based on the subset of the records;
• and
• providing the recommendation to the media device;
• wherein the media device downloads the recommended bit-rate variant of the secondary content from the server, and stitches the downloaded bit-rate variant of the secondary content into the stream of the primary content.

A media device, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor communicatively coupled to the memory and configured to:
• download and display a primary content on a display device;
• determine that a secondary content should be stitched into the display of the primary content;
• request that a crowdsource server determine a bit-rate variant of the secondary content among a plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content to download, wherein the crowdsource server determines the bit-rate variant of the secondary content in a crowdsourced manner such that subsequent download of the determined bit-rate variant of the secondary content by the media device results in a zero buffer experience at the media device, wherein to determine the bit-rate variant of the secondary content among the plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content to download, the crowdsource server accesses records of prior downloads of the secondary content by a plurality of media devices, wherein the records were provided to the crowdsource server by the plurality of media devices in a crowdsourced manner, identifies a subset of the records of the prior downloads of the secondary content by the plurality of media devices that are relevant to the media device based on the request from the media device, and generates a recommendation for the bit-rate variant of the secondary content among the plurality of bit-rate variants of the secondary content at a server among a plurality of servers to download by the media device based on the subset of the records;
• receive information from the crowdsource server that identifies the determined bit-rate variant of the secondary content;
• download the determined bit-rate variant of the secondary content from the server;
• and
• stitch the downloaded bit-rate variant of the secondary content into the display of the primary content.