Comcast Cable Communications, LLC

Other

Nbcuniversal Media, LLC

Yasser Fouad Syed

Alexander Giladi

Donald J Wester

Paul David Egenhofer

Danial E Holden

Ryan McMurray

Kevin L Pikus

Joseph Badro

Dan Grois

Derik Yarnell

Patrick G Ladd

Donald Dean Dischner

Shawn Andrew Kercher

Ali C Begen

Neill A Kipp

Christopher Lintz

Sheau Bao Ng

Jiang Xu

Stuart Kurkowski

Thomas Bause Mason

Daniel Holden

Methods, systems, apparatuses for selecting content applications are described. A manifest file associated with a channel may include content item identifiers associated with content items and content application identifiers associated with content applications that can play the content items. A computing device such as a set-top box may determine one or more content applications to play one or more content items based on the content item identifiers and the content application identifiers in the manifest file.

Methods and apparatuses for selecting content applications

A first server device may store a first copy of a content item, and a second server device may store a second copy of the content item. A computing device may receive a request for the content item from a user device. The computing device may determine a user identifier associated with the user device and send, to the first and second server devices, the user identifier and an indication of the content item. The computing device may determine, based on a response by the first server device, at least one of a quality score or a recording score associated with the first copy of the content item, and the computing device may send, to the user device and based on the at least one of the first quality score or the first recording score, a portion of the first copy of the content item.

Systems and methods for improving video playback quality

Methods and systems are described for managing content. A content asset may be stored as a plurality of content segments. The plurality of content segments may comprise one or more identifiers that may be used to generate a manifest file for playback of the content asset.

Content information for manifest determination

Methods and systems for providing content are described for receiving an encoding parameter associated with a first content transmission. The encoding parameter can indicate a level of complexity to encode the first content transmission. The method can comprise selecting, based on the encoding parameter, a second content transmission. The second content transmission can be encoded at a second bit rate that is different than a first bit rate of the first content transmission. The method can also comprise generating a third content transmission. The third content transmission can comprise the second content transmission.

Selecting content transmissions based on encoding parameters

When a temporally compressed video stream is decoded and subsequently re-encoded, quality is typically lost. The quality loss may be mitigated using information about how the source video stream was encoded during the re-encoding process. According to some aspects of the disclosure, this mitigation of quality loss can be facilitated by decoders that output such information and encoders that receive such information. These decoders and encoders may be separate devices. The functionality of these decoders and encoders may also be combined in a single device, such as a transcoding device. An example of the information that may be used during re-encoding is whether each portion of the original stream was intra-coded or non-intra-coded.

Preserving image quality in temporally compressed video streams

An encoder (e.g., a Versatile Video Coding (VVC) encoder, etc.) may make real-time encoding decisions to vary a bitrate of a content item (e.g., high-resolution video, streaming content, a movie, a show/program, etc.) by upsampling and/or downsampling portions (e.g., frames/slices, group of pictures (GOP), coding units (CU), coding tree units (CTU), etc.) based on a cost function that utilizes a versatile Lagrangian multiplier (denoted as λto denote the versatility). The versatile Lagrangian multiplier may not only account for the effects of quantization (e.g., a quantization parameter (QP), etc.) on portions of the content item, instead, the versatile Lagrangian multiplier may also be based on adjustment parameters associated with content resolution and/or playback quality of experience (QoE). The versatile Lagrangian multiplier enables a substantial decrease in transmission bitrate for portions of a content item without reducing the visual presentation quality and keeping an end-user quality of experience (QoE) at an optimal level.

Method and systems for optimized content encoding

Described herein are systems and methods for obfuscating variants of content segments. Variants of content segments can be used to encode an identifying sequence in a transmission of content. The duration parameter of a manifest entry can be modified by a random offset. The data size of variants of a given content segment can be equalized by adding one or more portions of data to one or more of the variants.

Content segment variant obfuscation

Methods and systems for packaging, transcoding, and fragmenting files (e.g., video content) are described. Video content may be transcoded into fix size, variable duration fragments files that satisfy a target fragment file size. Those fragment files may be received, decoded to recover original frames of the underlying video, and then repackaged as new fragment files that are grouped based on overall file size. As a result, the new fragments may have different playback durations, but their overall file sizes may be the same and/or within a target fragment file size (TFS).

Video fragment file processing

Methods, systems, and computing devices are described herein for request and transmission, to a computing device, of media content based on the importance of a portion of the media content. Media content may comprise baseline media content and enhancement data. Based on determining that an importance of a portion of the media content meets a threshold, the computing device may receive the enhancement data. The computing device may receive the enhancement data via a separate interface than the baseline media content. Information about baseline media content, enhancement data, and the importance of a portion of the media content may be contained in a manifest. The threshold for importance may be based on the media content, the enhancement data, an interface to be used, and/or user preferences.

Media content enhancement based on content importance

Disclosed are systems and methods for bandwidth reduction through duration averaging. An average duration of content segments can be determined. When the average segment duration exceeds a first threshold or falls below a second threshold, content segments can be encoded at new segment durations until the average segment duration falls below the first threshold and above the second threshold. When the average segment duration exceeds a first threshold or falls below a second threshold, an updated manifest including a modified segment duration parameter can be generated.

Bandwidth reduction through duration averaging

Methods and systems for improved content encoding are described herein. An encoder may allocate a time budget for encoding each frame of a content item. When the encoder takes longer than the allocated time budget to encode at least a portion of a given frame(s) of the content item at a first resolution, the encoder may take a number of actions in order to allow the encoder to 'catch up,' such as encoding frames at a second resolution. Once the encoder catches up and the allocated time budget is not being exceeded, the encoder may resume encoding frames of the content item at the first resolution.

Methods and systems for improved content encoding

In accordance with one or more embodiments, aspects of the disclosure provide efficient, effective, and convenient ways of uploading and authenticating content. In particular, a user device may receive validating information from a wireless networking device. The user or client device may record a content item, and may insert a validation tag based on the validating information. The user or client device may then send the content item to the wireless networking device. The wireless networking device may receive the content item at a first location and may determine the validity of the content item based on the validating information. The user device may continually interact with wireless networking devices as it travels to continually upload content items while establishing the validity of the time and location of the content items.

Distributed content uploading and validation

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are described for stabilizing an object in an augmented reality scene by spatially registering the virtual object to one or more physical objects or virtual objects within the augmented reality scene.

Methods and systems for anchoring objects in augmented or virtual reality

Systems and methods of adaptive streaming are discussed. Transcoded copies of a source stream may be aligned with one another such that the independently specified portions of each transcoded stream occur at the same locations within the content. These transcoded copies may be produced by one or more transcoders, whose outputs are synchronized by a delay adjuster. A fragmenter may use the synchronized and aligned streams to efficiently produce fragments suitable for use in adaptive streaming.

Growing community of inventors

La Crescenta, CA, United States of America

Yasser Fouad Syed