Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Geqiang (Sam) Zhang

Vishal Sood

Jack E Freelander

John A Bocharov

Lin Liu

Krishna Prakash Duggaraju

Anirban Roy

Sam J George

Sudheer Sirivara

Raymond Cheng

Jimin Gao

Brian E Blum

Jeffrey M Wilcox

A sparse streaming system provides a first-class means for sparse metadata to be added to streaming media presentations and to be delivered using an integrated data channel that is cacheable using readily available HTTP-based Internet caching infrastructure for increased scalability. The sparse streaming system stores a reference to a sparse track within a continuous track. If a continuous fragment arrives at the client that refers to a sparse fragment that the client has not yet retrieved, then the client requests the sparse fragment. In addition, each sparse fragment may include a backwards reference to the sparse fragment created immediately prior. The references in the continuous fragments make the client aware of new sparse track fragments, and the backwards references in the sparse track fragments ensure that the client has not missed any intervening sparse track fragments.

Integrating continuous and sparse streaming data

A flexible logging system is described herein that operates with a web server to provide activity logging in a way that is customizable to include a variety of data fields, can capture both client and server log information to a single location, and can provide data to an analysis engine directly to provide near real-time reporting. The system captures events within the web server as they occur and can provide reporting before the final response occurs. During request processing in the web server, server extension modules raise log events whenever an event occurs. The system matches the received data to a log definition and writes the data to any log that matches. Thus, the flexible logging system provides a rich, flexible, and fast platform for content providers and administrators to get a real-time view of the state of requests to their web servers.

Flexible logging, such as for a web server

An adaptive streaming system is described herein that provides a stateless connection between the client and server for streaming media playback in which the data is formatted in a manner that allows the client to make decisions and react more quickly to changing network conditions. The client requests uniform chunks of media from the server that include a portion of the media. The adaptive streaming system requests portions of a media file or of a live streaming event in small-sized chunks each having a distinguished URL. This allows streaming media data to be cached by existing Internet cache infrastructure. Each chunk contains metadata information that describes the encoding of the chunk and media content for playback by the client. The server may provide chunks in multiple encodings so that the client can switch quickly to chunks of a different bit rate or playback speed.

Smooth, stateless client media streaming

A streaming abstraction system is described herein that provides application developers a client software development kit (SDK) on top of which to build smooth streaming solutions. The system reduces development time considerably and abstracts platform specific intricacies and protocol handling on the client. In addition, the streaming abstraction system makes it possible to monetize streaming content with advanced features like advertising and analytics and provides advanced capabilities like multiple camera angles, diagnostics, and error handling. In some embodiments, the streaming abstraction system provides an intermediate layer that operates between an application and an underlying client media platform. The intermediate layer manages smooth streaming protocol handling as well as interactions with the platform-specific runtime.

Smooth streaming client component

A reliable streaming system increases reliability of live and on-demand streaming media events through a robust server architecture that allows fast failover and recovery in the event of network, hardware, or other failures. The system provides for failover of encoders, ingest servers, which receive encoded media data from encoders, and origin servers, which serve as the retrieval point of last resort for connecting clients. The system also provides a push proxy mechanism that allows one copy of data to feed redundant servers and pre-warm caches, saving on provisioned bandwidth. In addition, the system provides a distribution server role that allows content to be automatically syndicated to a region when needed. Thus, the reliable streaming system provides a streaming solution with no single point of failure and redundancy and fast failover built into the content network architecture.

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Geqiang (Sam) Zhang