Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Alex Xiaoye Zhang

Matthew Brinkley

Khawaja Salman Shams

Meera Jindal

Craig Wesley Howard

Ryan F Watson

Gregory Kenneth Truax

Varun Ram

Mark DeSpain

Kenneth Victor Chamberlin

William Dirks

Sierra Anderson

John Cowgill

Yongjun Wu

Michael Vidyadhar Kale

David Alexander Dunlap

Kyle Bradley Koceski

Viriya Ratanasangpunth

Matthew Scharr

Katarzyna Anna Puchala

Dynamic transcoding can be used to provide supplemental content, selected to be played during breaks in a stream of primary content, that has the same format as the primary content. It can be desirable to provide supplemental content that is personalized. This may include additional content or advertising that may be of interest or relevance to a viewer. In many instances, the supplemental content will come from a different source and thus can be in a different format. Approaches in accordance with various embodiments can take advantage of dynamic transcoding of the supplemental content to provide properly formatted supplemental content through the same stream as the primary content. A custom manifest can be provided to the media player that points to the transcoded supplemental content. At an appropriate break in the playback, the media player can use the manifest to obtain the formatted supplemental content.

Transcoding of video content

Systems and methods are described to enable delivery of streaming content while inhibiting or preventing removal, blocking, or skipping of portions within that streaming content. A content delivery system can generate a manifest indicating content portions that form the streaming content. Each content portion can be identified in the manifest using a concealed identifier, which conceals the actual identifier of the content portion from the client to inhibit or prevent the client from automatically removing or modifying the content portion. On receiving a request for a content portion, the content delivery system can convert the concealed identifier into the actual identifier, and return the appropriate content portion to the client. In some instances, the specific identifiers included within a concealed manifest may be modified or adapted based on monitoring information of the client device, to ensure clients view given portions of streaming content.

Protecting content-stream portions from modification or removal

Methods and apparatus are described for encoding and delivering secondary content (e.g., advertisements) for insertion in primary content (e.g., live events, movies, and television shows). Secondary content is encoded such that the duration of any audio component of the secondary content is equal to or longer than the video component duration. When the secondary content is inserted, the overall duration of the inserted content is specified to be equal to the video component duration.

Encoding media content for playback compatibility

A multimedia stream may include an indication to insert multimedia content to the multimedia stream. An insertion segment may be selected from among multiple segments such that the insertion segment is selected based in part on metadata such as metadata associated with the recipient of the multimedia stream. Metadata associated with the insertion segment may be obtained. Satisfaction of a compliance requirement may be determined based on various information, such as metadata associated with the recipient and metadata associated with the insertion segment. The insertion segment may be made available as part of the multimedia stream.

Dynamic multimedia stream insertion from multiple sources

A multimedia stream may be abandoned (e.g., terminated) under various contexts. Metadata surrounding the abandonment, such as information regarding multimedia segments shown at or near the time of abandonment, may be stored. A system may detect satisfaction of a condition based at least in part on abandonment metadata associated with an abandoned stream, obtain a set of abandonment metadata sharing a characteristic in common, and determine a cause. Depending on the determined cause, various mitigations may be executed&#x2014;for example, if abandonment of streams is detected in a specific location at a particular point or period in time, one or more network diagnostics tests may be executed to determine whether there are network connectivity issues for viewers from the specific location.

Dynamic detection and mitigation of multimedia stream abandonment

Systems and methods are described to enable request-driven encoding of content portions to be played back as part of a content stream. A content stream can represent multiple types of content, each initially encoded according to different formatting parameters. Thus, playback of the multiple types of content as initially encoded would result in an inconsistently formatted content stream. To address this, a streaming content delivery service may respond to requests by including in a manifest file for a stream consistently formatted content portions, even when one or more of such portions is not yet available. The streaming content delivery service can initiate encoding of the not-yet-available portions, such that they are available and delivered to a client when requested.

Request-based encoding for streaming content portions

Systems and methods are described to enable delivery of a content stream while inhibiting or preventing removal, blocking, or skipping of portions within that content stream. Existing systems can request that a client device send various notifications during viewing of a streaming content. This information can be used by the client device to automatically remove or modify secondary content from the content stream. To prevent such removal or modification, embodiments of the present disclosure can remove the requirement that a client device have knowledge of when notifications are to be transmitted regarding portions of a content stream. A server can obtain monitoring information from either or both of a client device or a network-delivery system, to determine when the client device has output a portion of a content stream. The server can then determine an appropriate notification to be transmitted in response to that output, and transmit the notification.

Output tracking for protected content-stream portions

Systems and methods are described that enable high-data-rate network communications by use of a data transmission system, which can at least partially redirect data transmitted between two computing devices on a public network to a private network. The data transmission system may include a variety of endpoints at different locations, such that source and destination computing devices may pass information into and out of the data transmission system via the endpoints. To ensure that endpoints are able to communication with each computing device via a path of sufficient network quality, the data transmission system may dynamically generate additional endpoints within points of presence of the system. Where no endpoints or points of presence have a connection of sufficient quality to a source and destination computing device, the data transmission system may decline to transmit data, and instruct the source or destination computing devices to utilize traditional communication channels.

Use of virtual endpoints to improve data transmission rates

Systems and methods are described to enable request-driven encoding of content portions to be played back as part of a content stream. A content stream can represent multiple types of content, each initially encoded according to different formatting parameters. Thus, playback of the multiple types of content as initially encoded would result in an inconsistently formatted content stream. To address this, a streaming content delivery service may respond to requests by determining whether consistently formatted content portions are available, and if such portions are not available, select fallback content portions for inclusion in the stream. The streaming content service can further initiate generation of the consistently formatted content portions in response to the request, such that subsequent requests may be serviced using the consistently formatted content portions.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Alex Xiaoye Zhang