Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Patrik Schnell

Alexandre Vicktorovich Grigorovitch

James Morris Alkove

Charles Benjamin Franklin Waggoner

Marc Joliveau

Matthew James Bordenet

Justin Michael Binns

Kedarnath Atmaram Dubhashi

Clifford Paul Strom

Joshua B Barnard

Lei Li

Wesley Shawn Davis

Anand Paka

Satvir Randhawa

Mark L Beaubien

Pankaj Sethi

Yongjun Wu

Arthur Zavalkovsky

Sumedh N Barde

Adrian J Oney

Eugene (John) Neystadt

Yair Tor

Oleg Ananiev

Daniel Rose

Kenneth D Ray

Peter T Barrett

Daniel John Zigmond

James Armand Baldwin

Dustin Lyle Green

Andrew Jay Roths

Anat Eyal

Geoffrey R Smith

Nathan T Lewis

Steve Pronovost

Max Glenn Morris

Lonny Dean McMichael

Ryan A Haveson

Daniel Rosenstein

Kevin T Carle

Alex McKelvey

Kevin H Lau

Scott A Plette

Alexander McKelvey

Moshe Sapir

Donald Scott MacDonald

James Eric Knowler

Vikram Mangalore

Victor Thomas Wilburn

Alex Mckelvey

Techniques enable creation of a preview license for digital content. In some instances, the preview license indicates that it allows a content-consuming device to consume less than all of the content. This preview license may create a list specifying multiple portions of the digital content that the content-consuming device may consume. These techniques may also present to a device user an offer to purchase rights to consume all of the digital content after consumption of the preview-licensed portion(s). In other instances, a content server may embed the preview license into a content package that contains the digital content, allowing the server to distribute the package to multiple devices. In still other instances, the preview license may be bound to a domain rather than to individual devices. This allows member devices to share the digital content and the preview license, such that each member device may enjoy the preview experience.

Content preview

Disclosed are various embodiments for a client application for streaming media. The client application estimates the bandwidth of the client and the latency between the client and a media distribution service. A bit rate for a media stream is determined using the latency, a buffer state, and the estimated bandwidth. A time to send the request is determined using the estimated bandwidth and latency.

Generating requests for streaming media

Disclosed are various embodiments for a service for selecting the bandwidth of a media stream. The service correlates the buffer state of a client with previously communicated portions of the stream. The service then determines a bit rate for subsequent portions of the stream. A manifest may be generated indicating a source for content at the determined bit rate.

Bit rate selection for streaming media

Techniques are described by which multiple, independently encoded video streams may be combined into a single decodable video stream. These techniques take advantage of existing features of commonly used video codecs that support the independent encoding of different regions of an image frame (e.g., H.264 slices or HEVC tiles). Instead of including different parts of the same image, each region corresponds to the encoded image data of the frames of one of the independent video streams.

Combining encoded video streams

Disclosed are various embodiments for selecting fragments of a media item. An estimated bandwidth for a client is calculated. A confidence score for the estimated bandwidth is determined. When the confidence score falls below a threshold, the estimated bandwidth is modified. A fragment for the media item is selected using the modified estimated bandwidth.

Live stream manifests for on demand content

Disclosed are various embodiments for generating encrypted media content items as well as decrypting encrypted media content items. A content type is embedded in an initialization vector corresponding to an encrypted sample. Upon decryption of encrypted content, the content type is identified and an action taken based upon the detected content type.

Decrypting content protected with initialization vector manipulation

Disclosed are various embodiments for requesting fragments of a media item. A latency to a media distribution service and bandwidth for a client are estimated. A time to request a subsequent fragment from the media item is determined. Sources for the fragment are scored and one of the sources is selected. The fragment is requested from the selected source.

A DRM technique involves packaging an advertisement using a data structure that encapsulates a number of advertising segments along with signed information, such as a table of hashes, associated with some of the advertising segments. In one scenario, the data structure and the signed information are separately protected using public key and/or digital signature cryptographic schemes. The advertisement is delivered to a user of a consumer electronic device (CED) separately from delivery of a digital license, which governs user consumption of the advertisement. The digital license includes keys used in connection with the cryptographic scheme, and references a condition to be satisfied with respect to consumption of the advertisement. As advertising segments are verified and consumed by the user/CED, information is recorded and used to determine whether the license condition was satisfied. Satisfaction of the license condition may result in access to program content or additional licenses.

Digital content packaging, licensing and consumption

An anti-cheating system may comprise a combination of a modified environment, such as a modified operating system, in conjunction with a trusted external entity to verify that the modified environment is running on a particular device. The modified environment may be may be modified in a particular manner to create a restricted environment as compared with an original environment which is replaced by the modified environment. The modifications to the modified environment may comprise alternations to the original environment to, for example, detect and/or prevent changes to the hardware and/or software intended to allow cheating or undesirable user behavior.

Trusted entity based anti-cheating mechanism

Techniques for delivering content are described that vary the bit rate with which the content is delivered to achieve a consistent level of quality from the user's perspective. This is achieved through the use of quality metrics associated with content fragments that guide decision making in selecting from among the different size fragments that are available for a given segment of the content. Fragment selection attempts to optimize quality within one or more constraints.

Delivering media content to achieve a consistent user experience

Disclosed are various embodiments for a manifest generation service. A manifest generation service determines a bit rate for an on demand content stream to a client. A manifest is generated indicating a source for content at the determined bit rate. The bit rate is determined and manifests are generated repeatedly to adapt to changes in network conditions during the stream.

Protecting content with initialization vector manipulation

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Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Patrik Schnell