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US 2008/0307479 A1Published application
Bandwidth-Efficient Deployment of Video-On-Demand Assets in an IPTV Network
AssigneeAlcatel Lucent
InventorsEmanuele Jones, Mike Brehm, Jason Brown
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An IPTV network and a method are described herein that seamlessly integrate a multicast-based file transfer mechanism with unicast IPTV middleware to enable the efficient transfer of VOD assets from a Super Headend Office (SHO) to one or more Video Hub Offices (VHOs).
Claims20
A method for transferring a Video-On-Demand (VOD) asset from a Super Headend Office (SHO) to a Video Head Office (VHO) both of which are part of an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) network, said method comprising the steps of:
- using a multicast file transfer server associated with said SHO to multicast the VOD asset to one or more multicast file transfer clients in said VHO;
- storing the VOD asset received by the one or more multicast file transfer clients within one or more multicast caches in said VHO;
- accessing a unicast IPTV middleware in said VHO to initiate deployment of the VOD asset from the one or more multicast caches to one or more VOD servers within said VHO;
- deploying the VOD asset using a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connection from one multicast cache to the first VOD server within said VHO;
- and
- instructing each of the remaining VOD servers if any within said VHO to retrieve the VOD asset from the first VOD server.
3 more elements
An Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) network comprising:
- a Super Headend Office (SHO);
- and
- a Video Head Office (VHO);
- said SHO including a multicast file transfer server that multicast a Video-On-Demand (VOD) asset to one or more multicast file transfer clients in said VHO;
- said VHO including one or more multicast caches that store the VOD asset received by the one or more multicast file transfer clients;
- said VHO including a branch management server with unicast IPTV middleware that initiates deployment of the VOD asset from the one or more multicast caches to one or more VOD servers in said VHO;
- said VHO including a branch controller that uses a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connection to deploy the VOD asset from one multicast cache to the first VOD server;
- and
- said VHO including the branch controller that instructs each of the remaining VOD servers if any to retrieve the VOD asset from the first VOD server.
6 more elements
A method for transferring a Video-On-Demand (VOD) asset from a Super Headend Office (SHO) to a Video Head Office (VHO) both of which are part of an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) network, said method comprising the steps of:
- (A) using a multicast file transfer server associated with said SHO to multicast the VOD asset to one or more multicast file transfer clients in said VHO, wherein said using step further includes the steps of:
- (i) retrieving the VOD asset from a staging volume in a VOD importer server;
- (ii) multicasting the VOD asset via User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to the one or more multicast file transfer clients in said VHO;
- and
- (B) storing the VOD asset received by the one or more multicast file transfer clients within one or more multicast caches in said VHO
- (C) accessing a branch management server with unicast IPTV middleware in said VHO to initiate deployment of the VOD asset from the one or more multicast caches to one or more VOD servers within said VHO wherein said accessing step further includes the steps of:
- (i) enabling the branch management server associated with the unicast IPTV middleware to proxy a request to a branch controller associated with said VHO;
- (ii) creating a HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) connection between the branch controller and a VOD Operations Support System/Service Management Tool (OSS/SMT) server associated with said SHO;
- (iii) forwarding the proxy request from the branch controller via the VOD OSS/SMT to the VOD importer server associated with said SHO;
- (iv) receiving a file location at the branch controller from the VOD importer server, where the file location is a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) that contains a Fully-Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the VOD importer server;
- (v) storing the file location in a branch database associated with said VHO;
- and
- (vi) creating deployment jobs at the branch controller for the one or more VOD servers
- (D) deploying the VOD asset using a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connection from one multicast cache to the first VOD server within said VHO, wherein said deploying step further includes the steps of:
- (i) assigning the first VOD server a deployment job;
- (ii) enabling the first VOD server to use a file location associated with the VOD asset to retrieve the VOD asset via a HTTP connection from the one multicast cache, where the file location is a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) which previously had a Fully-Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) associated with a VOD importer server within said SHO but the FQDN was translated to an Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with the one multicast cache that is associated with a dedicated server or the first VOD server;
- and
- (iii) storing the VOD asset in a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) device associated with the first VOD server;
- and
- (E) instructing each of the remaining VOD servers if any within said VHO to retrieve the VOD asset from the first VOD server, wherein said instructing step further includes the steps of:
- (i) retrieving a deployment job assignment for each remaining VOD server from the branch controller;
- (ii) enabling each remaining VOD server to access the first VOD server and retrieve via a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connection the VOD asset;
- and
- (iii) storing the retrieved VOD asset in a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) device associated with each remaining VOD server.
21 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.