Comcast Cable Communications, LLC

Christopher Lintz

Jeremy Pfeifer

Tedd Dawson

Jason S Burgess

Justin Luna

Alexander Giladi

Yasser Fouad Syed

Derik Yarnell

Cory Zachman

Jiang Xu

Methods and systems are described for storing content. One or more sections of the stored content may be subdivided into user-specific portions and common portions. The user-specific portions may be stored in user-specific storage associated with corresponding accounts of a plurality of user accounts. The common portions may be stored in common storage associated with the plurality of user accounts. User accounts may request access to the stored content. One or more caching criteria may be used to determine whether to cache any common portions of the stored content. Requests for the content may be processed using the common portions stored in the cache storage.

Methods and systems for accessing stored content

A first server device may store a first copy of a content item, and a second server device may store a second copy of the content item. A computing device may receive a request for the content item from a user device. The computing device may determine a user identifier associated with the user device and send, to the first and second server devices, the user identifier and an indication of the content item. The computing device may determine, based on a response by the first server device, at least one of a quality score or a recording score associated with the first copy of the content item, and the computing device may send, to the user device and based on the at least one of the first quality score or the first recording score, a portion of the first copy of the content item.

Systems and methods for improving video playback quality

Methods and systems for providing supplemental data are disclosed. An exemplary method can comprise determining content currently being consumed by a user, determining one or more user preferences for display of supplemental data, retrieving supplemental data according to the one or more user preferences, and providing the supplemental data to the user concurrently with the content currently being consumed.

Methods and systems for providing supplemental data

A computing device may receive a request to store a content segment(s). The request may include an estimated storage size. The computing device may determine a plurality of storage devices based on an estimated capacity of each of the storage devices to store the content segment(s). The computing device may cause each of the storage devices to allocate storage for the content segment(s). The allocated storage may be tracked and/or retrieved based on location metadata indicative of the allocated storage that may be stored at a cache and/or metadata repository.

Systems, methods, and apparatuses for storage management

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for efficient storage and retrieval of content items, such as recorded content items of a cloud DVR system or other system storing content items.

Caching recorded content segments on playback

Methods and systems are described for storing content that match topics of interest selected by a user or an automated process. Audio information associated with the content can be extracted, parsed, and grouped into topics. Incoming content with audio information that matches the topics of interest selected can be stored and made available to the user for later playback.

Methods and systems for matching interests with content

Systems and methods are described for retrieval and output of content in a way that addresses concerns with storing multiple copies or versions of a piece of content. The piece of content may have associated computer instructions that allow the client to access alternate portions of the piece of content during consumption. This allows the content provider to store a single copy of the complete piece of content while enabling consumers to access alternate audio or video portions of the content. A new playback architecture may execute instructions associated with a piece of content. Instructions associated with a piece of content may directly affect consumption by the consumer client and may be dependent upon user preferences or interests.

Content playback control

Systems and methods are described herein for an efficient storage layout of recorded content associated with a particular user. Content segments, unique to the user and encoded/transcoded at different bit rates, may be stored/partitioned based on the likelihood of a particular bit rate version of content being requested by the user and a duration of playback for the content segment. Content that is more frequently requested may be concatenated in a single storage location on more high performance hardware. Further, content that is played back for a longer duration of playback may also be grouped together and stored on more high performance hardware. Content that is more likely to be played for only a short time may be stored within a plurality of storage containers.

Method and system for efficient layout of stored video segments

Delay in delivery of a content asset to a user device may be reduced by fetching a portion of the content asset and storing it in a cache. From the cache, segments of the portion of the content asset may be sent to the user device. An indication of a trickplay command associated with playback of the content asset on the user device may be received, such as a fast forward command, a rewind command, or a play command. Based on a type of the trickplay command, the portion of the content asset in the cache may be adjusted, such as by adjusting a time to live (TTL) of a segment of the content asset in the cache, by evicting a segment of the content asset in the cache, or by predictively pre-fetching and storing other segments to the cache.

Systems and methods for storing and delivering content assets

Methods and systems for cache optimization are described. Content items served to client devices of a content distribution network may be associated with a cache value. The cache value for a content item may cause a cache device to cache the content item for a period of time. The cache value for the content item may be updated based on increasing or decreasing popularity. The content item may be encoded at a plurality of bitrates, and cache values may vary across the plurality of bitrates such that multiple copies of the content item may each be cached for varying periods of time depending on a corresponding bitrate.

Methods and systems for cache optimization

Systems and methods for managing the storage of content are described. A video stream may include a content identifier and content information relating to a boundary that may be used to facilitate recording of at least a portion of the video stream.

Growing community of inventors

Denver, CO, United States of America

Christopher Lintz