US 8,135,855 B2Granted

Method and system for enhancing live stream delivery quality using prebursting

AssigneeAkamai Technologies, Inc.

InventorRamesh K. Sitaraman

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Abstract

The subject matter herein relates to a method to “accelerate” the delivery of a portion of a data stream across nodes of a stream transport network. A portion of a live stream is forwarded from a first node to a second node in a transport network at a high bitrate as compared to the stream's encoded bitrate, and thereafter, the stream continues to be forwarded from the first node to the second node at or near the encoded bitrate. The disclosed technique of forwarding a portion of a stream at a high bitrate as compared to the encoded bitrate of the stream is sometimes referred to as “prebursting” the stream. This technique provides significant advantages in that it reduces stream startup time, reduces unrecoverable stream packet loss, and reduces stream rebuffers as the stream is viewed by a requesting end user that has been mapped to a media server in a distributed computer network such as a content delivery network.

Claims5

Dependent claims

Edge node apparatus operative in a transport network having a set of edge nodes to which requesting end users are directed to obtain a live data stream, comprising:

a processor;
computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to perform a method, comprising:
receiving a burst portion of the live stream from a first node, the burst portion received at a rate that is higher than an encoded bitrate of the live stream, the burst portion representing an amount of the live stream stored at the first node during a given time period;
after the burst portion of the live stream is received from the first node, receiving a second portion of the live stream from the first node, the second portion received at the encoded bitrate of the live stream;
and
ignoring portions of the live stream other than a burst portion until data associated with the burst portion begins to be received or expiration of a time period during which data associated with the burst portion has not begun to be received.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/007,696Filed 17 Jan 2011 · continuation
Priority: 10 Apr 2002
Published: US 2011/0113152 A112 May 2011
Granted: 13 Mar 2012
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

H04L 69/329
Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions: in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
H04L 65/613
For supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio: for the control of the source by the destination
H04L 65/752
Media network packet handling: adapting media to network capabilities
H04L 67/63
Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and…: routing…

Family

Application60/371,463Us provisional application · filed 10 Apr 2002
Application10/410,986Parent of this continuation · filed 10 Apr 2003
Application12/185,139Parent of this continuation · filed 4 Aug 2008
US 7,409,456 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 5 Aug 2008
US 7,873,740 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 18 Jan 2011
US 2011/0113152 A1Pre-grant publication · published 12 May 2011
US 2005/0015509 A1Published application
US 2008/0320160 A1Published application
US 8,135,855 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.