Dish Technologies L.l.c.

Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.

Verizon Digital Media Services Inc.

Echostar Technologies Corporation

Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Dish Digital L.l.c.

Echostar Advanced Technologies L.l.c.

Uplynk, LLC

Move Networks, Inc.

David Frederick Brueck

Mark B Hurst

Nathan James Edwards

R Drew Major

C Ryan Owen

Ken Brueck

Tyler Bye

Calvin Ryan Owen

Giuseppe Manzari

Chang Liu

Tyler Willey

Robert Longwell

Andrew Bauch

Loren Douglas Larsen

Thomas G McNeill

Douglas T Parrish

Fred Ross Cordova, Jr

John Edwards

David K Brown

Kenneth Alan Brueck

Justyn T Bye

Dustin W Long

Paul D Heitlinger

Kenneth A Brueck

Grady Player

An apparatus, system, and method for maintaining a programming lineup of adaptive-bitrate content streaming is provided. The apparatus includes a timeline module configured to maintain a programming lineup of media content available over a network. The media content may comprise a plurality of streamlets. The apparatus also includes at least one data module configured to maintain multi-bitrate streamlet information. The system includes the apparatus and a client module configured to acquire content based upon the programming lineup provided by the timeline module. The method includes maintaining a programming lineup of media content available over a network, and maintaining multi-bitrate streamlet information.

Apparatus, system, and method for multi-bitrate content streaming

Messaging services for providing updates for multimedia content delivered over the Internet for a live event. In one embodiment, a messaging server provides real-time updates for multimedia content of a live event delivered over the Internet to multiple media players that request the multimedia content over the Internet. In one embodiment, the real-time updates indicate when the multimedia content is available for delivery over the Internet. In another embodiment, the real-time updates can be used to dynamically insert advertisement markers for advertisement breaks in the multimedia content.

Messaging service for providing updates for multimedia content of a live event delivered over the internet

An apparatus for multi-bit rate content streaming includes a receiving module configured to capture media content, a streamlet module configured to segment the media content and generate a plurality of streamlets, and an encoding module configured to generate a set of streamlets. The system includes the apparatus, wherein the set of streamlets comprises a plurality of streamlets having identical time indices and durations, and each streamlet of the set of streamlets having a unique bit rate, and wherein the encoding module comprises a master module configured to assign an encoding job to one of a plurality of host computing modules in response to an encoding job completion bid. A method includes receiving media content, segmenting the media content and generating a plurality of streamlets, and generating a set of streamlets.

An apparatus for multi-bitrate content streaming includes a receiving module configured to capture media content, a streamlet module configured to segment the media content and generate a plurality of streamlets, and an encoding module configured to generate a set of streamlets. The system includes the apparatus, wherein the set of streamlets comprises a plurality of streamlets having identical time indices and durations, and each streamlet of the set of streamlets having a unique bitrate, and wherein the encoding module comprises a master module configured to assign an encoding job to one of a plurality of host computing modules in response to an encoding job completion bid. A method includes receiving media content, segmenting the media content and generating a plurality of streamlets, and generating a set of streamlets.

Server side content impression progression tracking is performed using ping triggers and pings. A server generates ping triggers for content based on an impression list from a configuration provided by the content originator. The server sets different times at which the ping triggers are to fire during content playback. When media playback on a client reaches a time set for a ping trigger, the ping trigger causes the client to return a ping to the server to indicate that playback has reached the designated time. In this manner, the pings granularly track content viewership on different clients, wherein the granular tracking measures not only whether content was viewed or not, but also how much of the content was viewed. Subsequent content to a particular client can be customized based on preferences derived from pings tracked from the particular client.

Media playback ping

Provided is a system for efficiently creating snippets or clips from media assets without re-encoding the entire portion of already encoded media content falling within the snippet boundaries. The system partitions and encodes the original media asset as set of slices with each slice encoding a different temporal chunk of the media asset. The system identifies a first slice that encodes a duration of the media asset spanning the snippet start time, and a second slice that encodes a duration of the media asset spanning the snippet end time. The system produces a snippet start slice from decoding, clipping, and re-encoding the first slice and a snippet end slice from decoding, clipping, and re-encoding the second slice. The system generates the snippet from the snippet start slice, an unmodified subset of the set of slices between the first slice and the second slice, and the snippet end slice.

Speedy clipping

A scalable architecture is provided for decentralized scaling of resources in a media content encoding platform. The scalable architecture is comprised of a first slicing tier, a second broker tier, and a third encoding tier. Each tier can be horizontally and vertically scaled independent of one another. The second broker tier receives media content slices from the first slicing tier. The second broker tier retains the slices directly in main memory of different brokers without writing the slices to a database or disk. The brokers distribute the slices from main memory across the third encoding tier for encoding based on availability of different encoders in the third tier. This architecture improves overall encoding performance as some of the delays associated with managing and distributing the slices at the second tier are eliminated by operation of the brokers.

Encoding scalability with brokers

The implementation provides for controlled dynamic content replacement within media content. The media content is encoded in its original form with markers marking segments for time or condition triggered replacement. Each marker is provided a type. A request link is generated for requesting the media content. The link encodes control data for the different marker types. In response to a media content request, the server scans encoded chunks of the media content for markers. From the request link, the server obtains the control data for an identified marker type and determines whether to replace the content based on triggering of the control data. This allows advertising content to remain as part of the media content until reaching a certain number of impressions or a certain time. Thereafter, the content is dynamically replaced with temporally relevant content or other content from an ongoing campaign during real-time media content playback.

Stream boundary marking for dynamic content replacement

Growing community of inventors

Saratoga Springs, UT, United States of America

David Frederick Brueck