Parallel scheduling of multilayered media
AssigneeCable Television Laboratories, Inc.
InventorBelal Hamzeh
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Multi-link transportation of media, video and other data of the type having multiple layers, streams and/or encodings is contemplated. The multi-link transportation may be facilitated with a scheduler configured to schedule the various layers, streams, encodings, etc. for transportation over selectable communication links, such as based on reliability, capacity and/or other operating characteristics.
Claims20
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having a plurality of non-transitory instructions executable with a processor of a server to facilitate transport of content to a client over a plurality of links when the content is encoded according to a plurality of encodings, the non-transitory instructions being sufficient for:
- identifying the content to be encoded according to at least a first encoding and a second encoding of the plurality of encodings;
- identifying at least a first link of the plurality of links to be available for transporting the first encoding to the client and a second link of the plurality of links to be available for transporting the second encoding to the client;
- determining first parameters for the first link and second parameters for the second link, the first and second parameters respectively representing streaming characteristics associated with transport of the content over the corresponding first and second link;
- and
- communicating information derived from the first and second parameters to the client to facilitate the client accessing the content when transported over the first and second links.
A server for transporting media to a client, the server comprising:
- an encoder for separately encoding the media into at least a first encoding and a second encoding, the second encoding being of a second type different from a first type of the first encoding;
- a first interface for transporting the first encoding over a first link and a second interface for transporting the second encoding over a second link, the second link being physically and/or logically distinct from the first link;
- a controller having a plurality of non-transitory instructions executable with a processor associated therewith to facilitate transport of the media, the non-transitory instructions being sufficient for:
- i) assessing suitability of the first and second links to respectively facilitate transport of the first and second encodings;
- and
- ii) messaging the client regarding the suitability to facilitate the client arbitrating between the first and second links when subsequently requesting transport of the media.
A method for transporting content from a server to a client when the content is available in a plurality of encodings, the method comprising:
- determining capacity for network links available between the server and client to transport the plurality of encodings;
- and
- messaging the client of the capacity with detail sufficient for the client to request transport of the content over the network links having capacity sufficient to transport the corresponding encoding from the server to the client.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.