Method and apparatus for automatic discovery of elements in a system of encoders
AssigneeARRIS Enterprises LLC
InventorsSean T. McCarthy, Frederic Turmel
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Abstract
A method and system is provided for automatic discovery of elements in a system of encoders optionally controlled by a statmux controller. Discovery is implemented by sniffing a multicast IP address used by the elements of the system to communicate metadata.
Claims12
A method of automatically discovering and obtaining data from geographically distributed elements of a closed loop statistical multiplexing system comprising a plurality of encoders and at least one statmux controller communicatively coupled by a network, comprising:
- sniffing multicast messages transmitted via the network to identify each of the plurality of encoders and the at least one statmux controller of the closed loop statistical multiplexing system;
- parsing the multicast messages in the network to identify each of a plurality of program data streams from each of the identified plurality of encoders;
- correlating each of the identified plurality of program data streams with one of the plurality of encoders and an associated statmux controller;
- synchronizing the identified correlated program data streams;
- and
- multiplexing the synchronized, correlated program data streams into assembled data streams,
- wherein the sniffed multicast messages comprise metadata multicast messages transmitted from the encoders and the at least one statmux controller to only one metadata multicast address, and
- wherein the multicast messages transmitted from the encoders each comprise:
- a first program source identifier;
- an encoder packet timestamp;
- and
- a bit rate request;
- each of the multicast messages transmitted from the at least one statmux controller each comprise:
- a second program source identifier;
- a statmux packet timestamp;
- and
- a bitrate allocation.
An apparatus for automatically discovering and obtaining data from geographically distributed elements of a closed loop statistical multiplexing system comprising a plurality of encoders and at least one statmux controller communicatively coupled by a network, comprising:
- a processor, communicatively coupled to the network;
- a memory, storing processor instructions comprising processor instructions for:
- sniffing multicast messages transmitted via the network to identify each of the plurality of encoders and the at least one statmux controller of the closed loop statistical multiplexing system;
- parsing the multicast messages in the network to identify each of a plurality of program data streams from each of the identified plurality of encoders;
- correlating each of the identified plurality of program data streams with one of the plurality of encoders and an associated statmux controller;
- synchronizing the identified correlated program data streams;
- and
- multiplexing the synchronized, correlated program data streams into assembled data streams,
- wherein the sniffed multicast messages comprise metadata multicast messages transmitted from the encoders and the at least one statmux controller to only one metadata multicast address,
- wherein the multicast messages transmitted from the encoders each comprise:
- a first program source identifier;
- an encoder packet timestamp;
- and
- a bit rate request;
- each of the multicast messages transmitted from the at least one statmux controller each comprise:
- a second program source identifier;
- a statmux packet timestamp;
- and
- a bitmap allocation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.