Transcoding and caching for off air television programming delivery

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10356358-B2
Application number	US-201715624377-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 15, 2017
Priority date	Mar 7, 2012
Publication date	Jul 16, 2019
Grant date	Jul 16, 2019

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for capturing, transcoding, and caching off-air programming at a location local to the consumer. According to certain embodiments, a device is provided that receives off-air (e.g., broadcast) and/or cable (e.g. ClearQAM) programming via one or more antennas and caches the programming in various streams having various bit rates for later viewing using, for example, Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming. Such a device can be incorporated in a larger system that can stream content via a data communication network (e.g., the Internet) and the device in a seamless manner. The device also can be controlled by a remote system via the data communication network, and further can be configured to stream content to a remote device via the data communication network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming, the at-home device comprising:
an over-the-air television tuner that receives over-the-air local television broadcasts from an over-the-air antenna installed at a home of a user;
a memory;
a wireless communication interface that communicates with a wireless network, the wireless communication interface being distinct from the over-the-air television tuners; and
one or more processors communicatively coupled with the over-the-air television tuner, the memory, and the wireless communication interface, wherein the one or more processors are configured to:
perform an initial setup of the at-home device to determine a plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels that are received using the over-the-air television tuner via the over-the-air antenna at the home;
provide, via the Internet to a content manager hosted by a remote content provider system, an indication of the plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels determined during the performed initial setup of the at-home device;
receive a request to transmit a stream of an over-the-air broadcast television channel from the plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels from the content manager hosted by the remote content provider system based on: (1) the content manager receiving a request from a remote computerized device, and 2) the indication of the plurality of the over-the-air broadcast television channels determined during the performed initial setup of the at-home device;
receive, from the over-the-air antenna via the over-the-air television tuner, an over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel;
transcode the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel into a different video compression format to create a transcoded video stream; and
output, via the wireless communication interface, at least a portion of the transcoded video stream to the remote computerized device via the wireless network in response to the request.

2. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , wherein the at least the portion of the transcoded video stream output to the remote computerized device is transmitted to the remote computerized device via the Internet.

3. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors being configured to transcode the over-the-air broadcast comprises the one or more processors being configured to transcode the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

4. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , wherein the transcoding performed by the one or more processors is performed in real time as the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel is received.

5. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors being configured to transcode the over-the-air broadcast comprises the one or more processors using adaptive bitrate streaming to adjust a streamed bitrate of the transcoded video stream to respond to network congestion determined via the wireless communication interface.

6. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , wherein:
the over-the-air television tuner is configured to be communicatively connected with a plurality of over-the-air antennas that comprises the over-the-air antenna; and
the one or more processors is further configured to select the over-the-air antenna from the plurality of over-the-air antennas to use to receive the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel based on a signal strength associated with the over-the-air antenna.

7. The at-home device for receiving and delivering television programming of claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of over-the-air television tuners that includes the over-the-air television tuner, wherein the one or more processors is further configured to receive a plurality of television channels via the plurality of the over-the-air television tuners at the same time.

8. A method for using an at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming, the method comprising:
performing, by the at-home device, an initial setup of the at-home device to determine a plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels that are received using an over-the-air television tuner connected with an over-the-air antenna at a home;
transmitting, by the at-home device, via the Internet to a content manager hosted by a remote content provider system, an indication of the plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels determined during the initial setup of the at-home device;
receiving, by the at-home device, via a wireless communication interface in communication with a wireless network, a request to transmit a stream of an over-the-air broadcast television channel from the plurality of over-the-air broadcast television channels from the content manager based on: (1) the content manager receiving a request from a remote computerized device; and (2) the indication of the plurality of the over-the-air broadcast channels determined during the performed initial setup of the at-home device;
receiving, by the at-home device, from the over-the-air antenna connected with the over-the-air television tuner, an over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel;
transcoding, by the at-home device, the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel into a different video compression format to create a transcoded video stream; and
outputting, by the at-home device, via the wireless communication interface, at least a portion of the transcoded video stream to the remote computerized device via the wireless network in response to the request.

9. The method for using the at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming of claim 8 , wherein the at least the portion of the transcoded video stream output to the remote computerized device is transmitted to the remote computerized device via the Internet.

10. The method for using the at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming of claim 8 , wherein transcoding the over-the-air broadcast comprises transcoding the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

11. The method for using the at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming of claim 8 , wherein transcoding is performed in real time as the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel is received.

12. The method for using the at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming of claim 8 , wherein transcoding the over-the-air broadcast is performed using adaptive bitrate streaming to adjust a streamed bitrate of the transcoded video stream to respond to network congestion determined via the wireless communication interface.

13. The method for using the at-home device for receiving and streaming television programming of claim 8 , further comprising:
selecting, by the at-home device, the over-the-air antenna from a plurality of over-the-air antennas to use to receive the over-the-air broadcast of the requested over-the-air broadcast television channel based on a signal strength associated with the over-the-air antenna.

14.

Assignees

• Dish Tech Llc

Inventors

• Lynch Roger
• Paul John
• Major Robert Drew
• Kummer David

Classifications

• H04N21/4331

  Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback · CPC title

• H04N5/765

  Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus · CPC title

• H04N21/8456

  by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments · CPC title

• H04N21/440218

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

• H04N21/4334

  Recording operations (recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27) · CPC title