Streaming methods and systems using tuner buffers
AssigneeSling Media Pvt Ltd
InventorsYatish Jayant Naik Raikar, Arunoday Thammineni
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Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for presenting media content with reduced latency. An exemplary method involves obtaining, by a tuner at a media device, media content broadcast on a broadcast channel and buffering, at the media device, a recent subset of the media content in a buffer associated with the tuner. In response to selection of the broadcast channel for presentation on a destination device coupled to the media device, the method continues by transcoding at least a portion of the buffered subset of the media content at the media device and providing the transcoded subset of the media content to the destination device.
Claims23
A method of presenting media content using a media device, the method comprising:
- obtaining, by a tuner at the media device, the media content broadcast on a broadcast channel;
- buffering, at the media device, a recent subset of the media content in a buffer associated with the tuner, resulting in a buffered subset of the media content;
- and
- in response to selection of the broadcast channel for presentation on a destination device coupled to the media device:
- transcoding, at the media device, at least a portion of the buffered subset of the media content from a broadcast format to a different format at a data rate faster than a real-time transcoding rate, resulting in a transcoded subset of the buffered subset of the media content having the different format;
- and
- providing, by the media device, the transcoded subset of the media content to the destination device.
4-5. (canceled)
A media device comprising:
- a tuner to receive media content on a broadcast channel;
- a tuner buffer coupled to the tuner to buffer a recent subset of the media content on the broadcast channel;
- a time shift buffer;
- a management module coupled to the tuner buffer and the time shift buffer to initialize the time shift buffer with the recent subset of the media content on the broadcast channel from the tuner buffer in response to selection of the broadcast channel;
- and
- a transcoding module coupled to the time shift buffer to transcode at least a portion of the recent subset of the media content from the time shift buffer from a broadcast format to a different format at a data rate faster than a real-time transcoding rate.
(canceled)
A media device comprising:
- a tuner arrangement comprising a plurality of tuners;
- a data storage arrangement comprising a plurality of tuner buffers corresponding to the plurality of tuners and a time shift buffer;
- and
- a management module coupled to the data storage arrangement to initialize the time shift buffer with a buffered subset of media content from a first tuner buffer of the plurality of tuner buffers prior to feeding the time shift buffer with the media content from a first tuner associated with the first tuner buffer in real-time in response to user selection of a broadcast channel associated with the first tuner and transcode at least a portion of the buffered subset of media content in the time shift buffer from a broadcast format to a different format at a data rate faster than a real-time transcoding rate.
(canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.