Devices, systems, and methods for adaptive switching of multicast content delivery to optimize bandwidth usage

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10158577-B2
Application number	US-201715819604-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 21, 2017
Priority date	Aug 17, 2012
Publication date	Dec 18, 2018
Grant date	Dec 18, 2018

Abstract

Systems, devices and methods for adaptive switching in multicast media streams are disclosed herein. In an embodiment, a method for adaptively transmitting content to one or more users based on currently available bandwidth via internet protocol (“IP”) multicast protocol, includes: receiving a first content stream having a plurality of data packets, the first content stream encoded at a first bit rate; receiving a second content stream having a plurality of data packets, the second content stream encoded at a second bit rate, wherein the first bit rate is different than the second bit rate and wherein the first and second content streams represent the same content; transmitting the first content stream to a user; determining that the user could receive the second content stream based on available bandwidth for transmitting data to the user; and transmitting the second content stream to the user.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
identifying a first switching identifier associated with a first content stream transmitted to a client device; and
transmitting a second content stream to the client device, the second content stream starting with a data packet including a second switching identifier corresponding to the first switching identifier,
wherein the first switching identifier is placed at a first predetermined time interval in the first content stream and the second switching identifier is placed at a second predetermined time interval in the second content stream.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the first switching identifier associated with the first content stream transmitted to the client device comprises:
determining, during transmission of the first content stream to the client device, to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream; and
responsive to the determining, searching data packets of the first content stream for the first switching identifier.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein determining to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream comprises:
receiving an indication of available bandwidth for transmitting the first content stream to the client device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first content stream is transmitted via a first multicast channel and the second content stream is transmitted via a second multicast channel, the method further comprising:
transmitting a message to the client device to cause the client device to switch from the first multicast channel to the second multicast channel to receive the second content stream.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the message includes a multicast address associated with the second multicast channel.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein transmitting the second content stream to the client device comprises:
transmitting the second content stream to the client device using the second multicast channel.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein a bit rate at which the first content stream is encoded is different from a bit rate at which the second content stream is encoded.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first content stream and the second content stream represent identical content.

9. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor configured to execute instructions stored in a non-transitory storage medium to:
identify a first switching identifier associated with a first content stream transmitted to a client device; and
transmit a second content stream to the client device, the second content stream starting with a data packet including a second switching identifier corresponding to the first switching identifier,
wherein the first switching identifier is placed at a first predetermined time interval in the first content stream and the second switching identifier is placed at a second predetermined time interval in the second content stream.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the instructions to identify the first switching identifier associated with the first content stream transmitted to the client device include instructions to:
determine, during transmission of the first content stream to the client device, to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream; and
responsive to the determination, search data packets of the first content stream for the first switching identifier.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the instructions to determine to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream include instructions to:
receive an indication of available bandwidth for transmitting the first content stream to the client device.

12. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the first content stream is transmitted via a first multicast channel and the second content stream is transmitted via a second multicast channel, wherein the instructions include instructions to:
transmit a message to the client device to cause the client device to switch from the first multicast channel to the second multicast channel to receive the second content stream.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the message includes a multicast address associated with the second multicast channel, wherein the instructions to transmit the second content stream to the client device include instructions to:
transmit the second content stream to the client device using the second multicast channel.

14. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein a bit rate at which the first content stream is encoded is different from a bit rate at which the second content stream is encoded, wherein the first content stream and the second content stream represent identical content.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising:
identifying a first switching identifier associated with a first content stream transmitted to a client device; and
transmitting a second content stream to the client device, the second content stream starting with a data packet including a second switching identifier corresponding to the first switching identifier,
wherein the first switching identifier is placed at a first predetermined time interval in the first content stream and the second switching identifier is placed at a second predetermined time interval in the second content stream.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the operations for identifying the first switching identifier associated with the first content stream transmitted to the client device comprise:
determining, during transmission of the first content stream to the client device, to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream; and
responsive to the determining, searching data packets of the first content stream for the first switching identifier.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations for determining to switch from the first content stream to the second content stream comprise:
receiving an indication of available bandwidth for transmitting the first content stream to the client device.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the first content stream is transmitted via a first multicast channel and the second content stream is transmitted via a second multicast channel, the operations further comprising:
transmitting a message to the client device to cause the client device to switch from the first multicast channel to the second multicast channel to receive the second content stream.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein the message includes a multicast address associated with the second multicast channel, wherein the operations for transmitting the second content stream to the client device comprise:
transmitting the second content stream to the client device using the second multicast channel.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein a bit rate at which the first content stream is encoded is different from a bit rate at which the second content stream is encoded, wherein the first content stream and the second content stream represent identical content.

Assignees

• Google Technology Holdings LLC

Inventors

• Sun Wendell
• Anderson Steven E
• Bhat Dinkar
• Samant Niranjan

Classifications

• H04L65/605

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/2402

  Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available (traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876) · CPC title

• H04L47/38 Primary

  by adapting coding or compression rate · CPC title

• H04L65/4076

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N21/234309

  by transcoding between formats or standards, e.g. from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 or from Quicktime to Realvideo (conversion of standards in analog television systems H04N7/01) · CPC title