Mobitv, Inc.

Tivo Corporation

Other

Kent Karlsson

Martin Linderoth

Charles Nooney

Anders Ödlund

Todd Allen Stiers

Fritz Barnes

Ola Hållmarker

Dag Henriksson

Kay Johansson

Tommy Isaksson

Gabriel Netterdag

Ola Hällmarker

Ian Wong

Ola Hallmarker

Anders Odlund

Emil Pettersson

Ulf Windisch

Lars Olsson

Niklas Westin

Cedric Fernandes

Ren L Long

Avery Audrey Kwan

Mesut Yousseinof

Thomas Matsson

The media stream delivery system encodes and fragments media streams into numerous media stream fragments maintained on fragment servers. Devices obtain fragments to reconstruct media streams including live real-time media streams for playback on the devices. A device may perform caching of media stream fragments so that particular fragments need not be accessed again from a fragment server. A fragment server or even a content provider can analyze and monitor characteristics of media streams, viewing behavior, content popularity, etc., to identify fragments for caching at the playback devices. Caching indicators along with time period indicators may be included in the media stream fragments.

Fragment server directed device fragment caching

Mechanisms are provided for replacing default advertisement streams in a media stream with replacement advertisement streams. User profile information is obtained for a particular user and/or device. A default advertisement stream is identified and replaced with advertisement streams selected using the user profile information. Timestamp information and sequence number information is maintained to allow uninterrupted delivery of the modified media stream while customizing media streams for particular users.

Dynamic advertisement stream replacement

Mechanisms are provided to manage media stream transmissions at a content server. A content server detects that a user on a device such as a mobile device has stopped playing a live media stream. The content server maintains information associating the user with the media stream and time information. When the content server detects that a user wishes to resume playing a media stream, the user can continue viewing the media stream from where stoppage occurred. In many instances, the content server stores many hours of live media stream data and allows a user to select a particular starting point.

Content server media stream management

Client buffer thresholds are dynamically adjusted to provide quick start up and smooth playback in a variety of network conditions. In some examples, multiple buffer configurations are available. An initial buffer configuration may be used in typical circumstances and will yield good behavior in most cases. A modified buffer configuration can be used when limited available network resources prevent smooth playback. In some embodiments, a client buffer configuration is continuously adapted based on network throughput and data transfer rates.

Contextually aware client buffer thresholds

Live media streams are delineated for distributed encoding and fragmentation in a dynamically scalable distributed resource system. In some examples, live MPEG-2 media streams are separated into groups of pictures (GOPs) and converted into jobs for encoding and fragmentation systems. Multiple jobs may be created for the same live media stream to provide for different quality levels for each fragment of each channel. Shared resources such as a pool of dynamically scalable virtual machines can be used to process the individual jobs. Encoded fragments may be H.264 fragments maintained on shared storage. A particular live stream corresponding to a particular quality level can be reconstructed using the encoded fragments.

Distributed scalable encoder resources for live streams

Media files such as MPEG-4 files are fragmented to allow for media and live media creation and delivery. A MPEG-4 standard description box includes synchronization information, end of file information, and chapter information to provide signaling information for near live playback of fragments. Playback can begin upon receiving a first MPEG-4 file fragment. A second MPEG-4 file fragment can be requested using information included in the first MPEG-4 file fragment.

Fragmented file structure for live media stream delivery

Growing community of inventors

Berkeley, CA, United States of America

Kent Karlsson