Systems and methods for delivery of content via multicast and unicast
AssigneeRovi Guides, Inc.
InventorsRajendran Pichaimurthy, Madhusudhan Seetharam, Harshith Kumar Gejjegondanahally Sreekanth
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Abstract
The system and methods described aid content delivery by providing requested content using a hybrid delivery of unicast and multicast content. A content delivery system receives, from user equipment, a request for content and identifies multicast sources for the content. The content delivery system determines a recent multicast source from the multicast sources, the recent multicast source having begun more recently relative to the other sources. The content delivery system transmits, to the user equipment, an identity of the recent multicast source and provides a beginning portion of the content to the user equipment via a unicast stream.
Claims21
-50. (canceled)
A method comprising:
- receiving, from user equipment, a request for content;
- identifying a multicast source and a unicast source of the content;
- receiving the content from the multicast source;
- and
- in response to determining that a first portion of the content from the multicast source requires buffering:
- identifying a start timestamp and an end timestamp of the first portion of the content;
- receiving a second portion of the content from the unicast source, wherein the content received from the unicast source does not include the first portion of the content and comprises a plurality of successive time stamps;
- arranging the first portion and the second portion based on the start timestamp, the end timestamp, and the plurality of successive time stamps;
- and
- storing, in memory, a single copy of the content comprising the arranged first portion and the second portion.
The method of claim 56, further comprising:
- in response to determining, based on the comparing, the start timestamp of the unicast source does not match the start timestamp of the multicast source, calculating a time difference between the start timestamp of the unicast source and the start timestamp of the multicast source;
- and
- determining a start timestamp of the second portion of the content from the unicast stream by adding the calculated time difference to the end timestamp of the first portion of the content that requires buffering.
The method of 51, further comprising:
- identifying a user profile associated with the user equipment;
- retrieving advertising content based on the user profile;
- determining an advertising period in the content;
- and
- inserting the advertising content into second portion of the content from the unicast stream at the advertising period.
A system comprising:
- a communication port;
- a memory storing instructions;
- and
- control circuitry communicably coupled to the memory and the communication port and configured to execute the instructions to:
- receive, from user equipment, a request for content;
- identify a multicast source and a unicast source of the content;
- receive the content from the multicast source;
- and
- in response to determining that a first portion of the content from the multicast source requires buffering;
- identify a start timestamp and an end timestamp of the first portion of the content;
- receive a second portion of the content from the unicast source, wherein the content received from the unicast source does not include the first portion of the content and comprises a plurality of successive time stamps;
- arrange the first portion and the second portion based on the start timestamp, the end timestamp, and the plurality of successive time stamps;
- and
- store, in memory, a single copy of the content Comprising the arranged first portion and the second portion.
The system of claim 66, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:
- in response to determining, based on the comparing, the start timestamp of the unicast source does not match the start timestamp of the multicast source, calculate a time difference between the start timestamp of the unicast source and the start timestamp of the multicast source;
- and
- determine a start timestamp of the second portion of the content from the unicast stream by adding the calculated time difference to the end timestamp of the first portion of the content that requires buffering.
The system of 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:
- identify a user profile associated with the user equipment;
- retrieve advertising content based on the user profile;
- determine an advertising period in the content;
- and
- insert the advertising content into second portion of the content from the unicast stream at the advertising period.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.