Reduction of startup time in remote HLS
AssigneeARRIS Enterprises LLC
InventorsMark S. Schmidt, William P. Franks, Paul Moroney
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method is provided for streaming transcoded HLS video from a video asset to allow a minimum startup delay time. A method includes pre-transcoding a first number of the HLS chunks. Then, once a request is received from a remote HLS client for the HLS video asset, transmitting a number of the pre-transcoded chunks to the remote HLS player. The pre-transcoded chunks are transmitted during a startup period until real-time transcoded chunks can be received and processed by the remote HLS player at a time position to allow seamless transition from the pre-transcoded chunks.
Claims14
A method of streaming video comprising:
- providing a portion of a recorded video asset to a transcoder or transcoders;
- dividing and pre-transcoding the portion of the video asset into a number of temporally contiguous sections of chunks, where the sections sequentially increase in bitrate, the pre-transcoding limited to the number of chunks that are only the portion of the video, and storing the pre-transcoded chunks to allow transmission beginning at least at a first low bitrate;
- receiving a request from a remote HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) client player for the recorded video asset at a determined bitrate;
- and
- transmitting the stored pre-transcoded chunks to the remote HLS client player in sequence and at a bitrate no greater than the determined bitrate for a period of time, the magnitude of the period based on the determined bitrate, and thereafter transmitting chunks transcoded in real time at the determined bitrate.
A Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for streaming HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) video to at least one remote HLS player device, the DVR comprising:
- an interface for transmitting the streaming HLS video to the remote HLS player;
- a processor connected to control the interface;
- a memory storing processor executable code to cause the processor to provide the HLS video stream through the interface and to perform the following steps:
- provide a portion of a recorded video asset to a transcoder or transcoders;
- divide and pre-transcode the portion of the recorded asset into a number of temporally contiguous sections of chunks, where the sections sequentially increase in bitrate, the pre-transcoding limited to the number of chunks that are only the portion of the video, and storing the pre-transcoded chunks in the memory to allow transmission beginning at least at a first low bitrate;
- receive a request from the remote HLS client through the interface for the recorded video asset at a determined bitrate;
- and
- transmit the stored pre-transcoded chunks to the remote HLS through the interface at a bitrate no greater than the determined bitrate for a period of time, the magnitude of the period based on the determined bitrate, and thereafter transmitting chunks transcoded in real time at the determined bitrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.