Offline download method and system

An offline download method adapted to be used with an offline download system comprising a cloud storage storing pre-downloaded files, the offline download method comprising steps of:

• receiving an offline download request for a requested file from a client;
• selecting at least one substitute file from the pre-downloaded files stored in the cloud storage when the requested file is not found in the cloud storage, wherein the at least one substitute file is determined to be similar to the requested file according to similarity between the at least one substitute file and the requested file;
• sending first information comprising at least one filename of the at least one substitute file and at least one associated download link to the cloud storage;
• and
• the client downloading one of the at least one substitute file from the cloud storage by connecting the associated download link.

An offline download system adapted to be used for pre-downloading a requested video file from internet in response to an offline download request from a client, the offline download system comprising:

• a cloud storage storing a plurality of video files;
• a similarity-calculating device for calculating similarity values between any two video files stored in the cloud storage;
• a video matching database for grouping video files with the similarity values greater than a first threshold value and sorting the grouped video files according to the similarity values in descending order;
• and
• a task manager in communication with the client, for receiving the offline download request for the requested video file from the client, and sending first information to the client when the requested video file is not found in the cloud storage, wherein the first information comprises at least one filename corresponding to at least one substitute file selected from the video files stored in the cloud storage, so that the client selects one of the at least one substitute file to download, the at last one substitute file being determined to be similar to the requested video file according to a similarity value between the at least one substitute file and the requested video file.

An offline download system adapted to be used for pre-downloading a requested file from internet in response to an offline download request from a client, the offline download system comprising:

• a cloud storage storing a plurality of video files;
• a task manager in communication with the client for receiving the offline download request from the client, extracting a filename of the requested file from the offline download request, and sending first information to the client when the requested file is not found in the cloud storage wherein the first information comprises at least one filename corresponding to at least one substitute file and at least one associated download link to the cloud storage;
• a cluster database recording a plurality of filenames of the video files stored in the cloud storage;
• and
• a cluster-analyzing device in communication with the task manager and the cluster database for receiving the extracted filename and searching the extracted filename in the cluster database, the cluster-analyzing device sending the first information to the task manager when the extracted filename is not found in the cluster database.