Hulu, LLC

British Broadcasting Corporation

Shenglan Huang

Wenhao Zhang

Lan Xie

Deliang Fu

Shun Ni

Saverio Blasi

Marta Mrak

Qiang She

Yuting Gui

Yicheng Liu

Yanping Zhou

Ebroul Izquierdo

Aleksandar Zambelli

In some embodiments, a method receives a first request for a first time window and a first viewport position for a client that is viewing a 360 degree video. A first message is sent to indicate a computing device will push content in a stream for a first one or more time windows other than the first time window. The method pushes content based on the first viewport position for the first time window to the client. A second request is received to change from the first viewport position to a second viewport position. The method sends a second message to indicate the computing device will push content in the stream for a second one or more time windows without canceling the stream. The method pushes content based on the second viewport position in the 360 degree video for the second one or more time windows to the client.

Pushing content in time windows based on different positions

In some embodiments, a method receives a first request for a first time window and a first position. A first message is sent to indicate a computing device will push content to a client in a stream for a video for a first one or more time windows other than the first time window. The method pushes content for the first time window based on the first position. A second request is received to change from the first position to a second position. The method pushes content for a second time window to the client based on the first position. A second message is sent to indicate the computing device will push content to the client in the stream for a second one or more time windows other than the second time window. The method pushes content for a third time window to the client based on the second position.

In some embodiments, a method receives a probability distribution of a likelihood that a user might view one or more tiles in one or more segments of a video. The video is encoded in different profiles that are associated with different bitrates. An available bandwidth is determined. Then, the method selects a profile for each tile in a segment of the video based on the available bandwidth and the probability distribution for the tiles and sends a request for a respective profile for each tile for playback of the segment of the video.

Adaptive bitrate algorithm with cross-user based viewport prediction for 360-degree video streaming

In some embodiments, a method sends a first frame that establishes a first state to push information to a client in a stream based on a first set of characteristics. The method transitions from the first state to a second state that allows pushing of content to the client. Content is pushed for a first time window to the client based on the first set of characteristics without receiving a request for the content in the first time window. The method receives a request to change the first set of characteristics to a second set of characteristics. The request includes information requesting a switch from the second state to the first state. In response to receiving the change, the method sends a second frame to continue pushing content to the client in the stream based on the second set of characteristics and transitions from the second state to the first state.

Soft server push in video streaming

In some embodiments, a method analyzes information regarding a round-trip time where the round-trip time is based on sending a request for a segment of a media program and receiving the segment of the media program. The method determines when to switch from requesting a single segment of the media program to sending a request that requests a plurality of segments of the media program. When switching from requesting the single segment of the media program, the request for the plurality segments of the media program is sent where at least two or more of the segments are received without sending a subsequent request for the two or more segments.

Dynamic variation of media segment durations for optimization of network round trip times

In some embodiments, a method receives one or more segments for content from a first content delivery network during a playback session for the content. The content includes a number of segments. The method evaluates buffer occupancy of a buffer configured to store segments of the content for playback and evaluates a number of times of a failure to download a segment for the content. The buffer occupancy is compared to a first threshold and the number of times of the failure to a second threshold. The method determines a switch from the first content delivery network to a second content delivery network during the playback session based on the comparing.

Dynamic multi-content delivery network selection during video playback

In some embodiments, a method receives playback information for a plurality of representations based on one or more videos being played at a media player. The plurality of representations have at least one different characteristic that affects playback of the video. A dropped-frame measurement is predicted for the plurality of representations based on the playback information. Then, the dropped-frame measurement is compared to a threshold for the plurality of representations. The method marks a first set of the plurality of representations as not being available based on the comparing. A second set of the plurality of representations are provided to the media player when the media player requests a video for playback and the first set of the plurality of representations for the video are blocked from being requested by the media player.

Prediction-based representation selection in video playback

A method of encoding image or video content within a set of targets such as a time, a complexity, quality, and bitrate, using an encoder having a plurality of coding configurations, comprises setting an initial coding configuration in the encoder, where coding configurations differ one from the other in the number of options tested for each of one or more tools. A first part of the content is encoded in the initial configuration and measures are made of the number of times a specified tool is used and a representative time taken to test an option for that specified tool. From those measures a prediction is made of the time difference between the time taken to encode content using the initial coding configuration and the time taken to encode content using another coding configuration in which a different number of options are tested for that specified tool.

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Beijing, China

Shenglan Huang