Management of an electronic content catalog based on bandwidth or connected display capabilities

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10134072-B2
Application number	US-201414316311-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 26, 2014
Priority date	Jun 26, 2014
Publication date	Nov 20, 2018
Grant date	Nov 20, 2018

Abstract

A system, method, and content provider server for creating a catalog of electronic content, wherein a customer accesses the catalog to browse and purchase electronic content, which is downloaded over a network to a customer premises where the electronic content is presented on a rendering device. Different pieces of the electronic content have different bandwidth requirements and impose different requirements for the rendering device. The server determines whether customer premises capabilities, including those of the rendering device, meet the requirements of each piece of electronic content, and populates the catalog only with pieces of electronic content for which the customer premises capabilities meet the requirements of the electronic content. Alternatively, the server may include all of the electronic content in the catalog while marking those pieces for which the customer premises capabilities do not meet the requirements of the electronic content.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method in a content provider server, the method comprising:
receiving a request for a content catalog from a customer's requesting device disposed in a customer premises having a plurality of customer premises equipment (CPE) devices, the plurality of CPE devices including the requesting device and served via a bandwidth pipe coupled to the customer premises for receiving respective adaptive bitrate (ABR) streams of content;
calculating a bandwidth portion of the bandwidth pipe of the customer premises that can be allocated to the requesting device upon taking into account existing ABR streaming sessions of at least a subset of the plurality of the CPE devices;
for each content title available at the content provider server, each content title having a plurality of bitrates, determining a range of bitrates of the content title that can be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device;
creating a filtered list of content titles containing only those content titles whose range of bitrates can be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device;
populating the content catalog at least with the filtered list of content titles; and
providing the content catalog containing the filtered list of content titles to the requesting device.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the request for a content catalog includes resolution capabilities of an identified rendering device coupled to the customer's requesting device, and the step of determining a range of bitrates for each content title is further based on determining whether the resolution capabilities of the identified rendering device are compatible with a particular bitrate of a content title.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising also populating the content catalog with content titles whose bitrates cannot be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device, including an indication for such content files in the content catalog as having requirements that exceed the customer premises bandwidth pipe capabilities.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the customer's requesting device is a browsing device connected to a rendering device, and the request for a content catalog includes an indication of capabilities of the connected rendering device.

5. A content provider network node, comprising:
a control processor; and
one or more modules coupled to the control processor, the one or more modules containing program instructions that perform following acts when executed by the control processor:
receiving, at a customer device interface, a request for a content catalog from a customer's requesting device disposed in a customer premises having a plurality of customer premises equipment (CPE) devices, the plurality of CPE devices including the requesting device and served via a bandwidth pipe coupled to the customer premises for receiving respective adaptive bitrate (ABR) streams of content;
calculating a bandwidth portion of the bandwidth pipe of the customer premises that can be allocated to the requesting device upon taking into account existing ABR streaming sessions of at least a subset of the plurality of the CPE devices;
for each content title available at the content provider server, each content title having a plurality of bitrates, determining a range of bitrates of the content title that can be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device;
creating a filtered list of content titles containing only those content titles whose range of bitrates can be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device;
populating the content catalog at least with the filtered list of content titles; and
providing the content catalog containing the filtered list of content titles to the requesting device.

6. The content provider network node according to claim 5 , wherein the request for a content catalog includes resolution capabilities of an identified rendering device coupled to the customer's requesting device, and the program instructions for determining a range of bitrates for each content title further include instructions for determining whether the resolution capabilities of the identified rendering device are compatible with a particular bitrate of a content title.

7. The content provider network node according to claim 5 , wherein the program instructions for populating the content catalog further comprise instructions for also populating the content catalog with content titles whose bitrates cannot be accommodated in the bandwidth portion allocated to the requesting device, including an indication for such content titles in the content catalog as having requirements that exceed the customer premises bandwidth pipe capabilities.

Assignees

• Ericsson Television Inc
• Ericsson Ab

Inventors

• Phillips Chris
• Dasher Charles Hammett

Classifications

• H04N21/2662

  Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities · CPC title

• H04N21/4516

  involving client characteristics, e.g. Set-Top-Box type, software version or amount of memory available · CPC title

• G06Q30/0623 Primary

  by investigating goods or services · CPC title

• G06Q20/123

  Shopping for digital content · CPC title

• H04N21/462

  Content or additional data management e.g. creating a master electronic programme guide from data received from the Internet and a Head-end or controlling the complexity of a video stream by scaling the resolution or bit-rate based on the client capabilities · CPC title