Delivery platform for cinema content
AssigneeBarco N.V.
InventorsTom Bert, Diego Duyvejonck, Amitabh Modak
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for distributing digital cinema content (DCC) to cinemas integrates with content creators, distributors and cinemas. A backbone that includes a scheduling system operates to automatically transfer DCC to individual cinema IT systems. The scheduler ensures availability of DCC at a cinema IT system in advance of or at a show time. The system may automatically generate key delivery messages. The cinema IT systems may comprise cinema servers that include media players dedicated to specific screens. The cinema servers may be operated as federated server groups. DCC may be stored on any of the cinema servers and played back on any screens in a cinema.
Claims25
A method for distributing and managing digital cinema content (DCC), the method comprising:
- at a content delivery backbone, receiving an item of DCC and storing the item of DCC in one or more backbone data stores;
- accessing data comprising a scheduled show time for the item of DCC by each of one or more cinema IT systems and determining a delivery deadline for delivering the item of DCC to each of the one or more cinema IT systems based at least in part on the respective scheduled show time for the item of DCC by the cinema IT system;
- determining an estimated transmission time to transfer a copy of the item of DCC from the backbone data store to each of the one or more cinema IT systems;
- and
- for each of the one or more cinema IT systems:
- determining a respective start time for the transfer of the copy of the item of DCC to the cinema IT system that is earlier than the delivery deadline by at least the estimated amount of time;
- and
- at the respective start time commencing transferring the copy of the item of DCC to the cinema IT system.
A system for distributing and managing digital cinema content (DCC), the system comprising:
- one or more cinema IT systems each of the one or more cinema IT systems associated with a cinema and comprising a plurality of cinema servers each of the cinema servers comprising a data store and one or more of the cinema servers comprising a media player associated with a corresponding screen;
- a backbone configured to selectively deliver the DCC to one or more of the cinema IT systems, the backbone comprising:
- one or more backbone data stores configured to receive and store the DCC;
- and
- a scheduler configured to initiate transfer of copies of the DCC from the backbone to individual ones of the cinema IT systems, the scheduler configured to:
- determine a delivery deadline for delivering an item of the DCC to one of the cinema IT systems based at least in part on a scheduled show time for the item of digital content by the cinema IT system;
- estimate an estimated amount of time required to transfer the copy of the DCC from the backbone data store to the cinema IT system;
- and
- determine a start time for the transfer that is earlier than the delivery deadline by at least the estimated amount of time.
A system for distributing and managing DCC, the system comprising:
- one or more cinema IT systems each of the one or more cinema IT systems associated with a cinema and comprising a plurality of cinema servers each of the plurality of cinema servers comprising a data store and a media player associated with a corresponding screen of the cinema;
- a backbone configured to selectively deliver the DCC to one or more of the cinema IT systems, the backbone comprising:
- one or more backbone data stores configured to receive and store the DCC;
- and
- one or more backbone servers configured to transfer copies of the DCC from the backbone data stores to one or more of the cinema servers of each of one or more of the cinema IT systems;
- the backbone in cooperation with the one or more of the cinema IT systems configured to schedule and execute the transfers of the copies of the DCC to meet corresponding delivery deadlines while throttling a data rate of the transfer and/or pausing the transfer and/or inhibiting executing the transfer at times corresponding to:
- the one or more of the cinema servers having a load higher than a threshold;
- and/or
- the one or more cinema IT systems having a load higher than a threshold;
- and/or
- a data communication link to the cinema IT system having traffic higher than a threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.