Methods and devices for adapting the rate of video content streaming

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10812774-B2
Application number	US-201816001418-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 6, 2018
Priority date	Jun 6, 2018
Publication date	Oct 20, 2020
Grant date	Oct 20, 2020

Abstract

Aspects of the subject application may include, for example, identifying FOV and OOS tiles of the video content. The FOV and OOS tiles are received from a video server. The FOV and OOS tiles are encoded using AVC and a first layer of SVC, respectively. Further embodiments include providing the FOV and OOS tiles for presentation on a display, detecting a change in a field of vision, and identifying other FOV tiles of the video content, which comprise a portion of the OOS tiles. Also, embodiments include requesting the portion of the OOS tiles and receiving the portion of the OOS tiles from the video server over the communication network, which are encoded using an enhancement layer of SVC and then provided, to the display, according the enhancement layer in conjunction with the providing of the OOS tiles according to the first layer. Other embodiments are described herein.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A device, comprising:
a processing system including a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
determining available bandwidth of a communication network;
transmitting an indication of the available bandwidth to a video server over the communication network;
identifying a field of vision of a user;
identifying a first group of field of vision (FOV) tiles of video content and a first group of out of sight (OOS) tiles of the video content based on the field of vision of the user, wherein a portion of each of the first group of FOV tiles is within the field of vision of the user and wherein each of the first group of OOS tiles are outside the field of vision of the user, wherein the first group of FOV tiles are received from the video server over the communication network and encoded using Advanced Video Coding (AVC), wherein the first group of OOS tiles are received from the video server over the communication network and encoded using a first layer of Scalable Video Coding (SVC), wherein the video server encodes the first group of FOV tiles using the AVC and encodes the first group of OOS tiles using the first layer of SVC based on the available bandwidth and the field of vision for the user;
providing the first group of FOV tiles and the first group of OOS tiles for presentation on a display, wherein the first group of FOV tiles is presented on the display during a first time period and the first group of OOS tiles is not presented on the display during the first time period;
detecting a change in the field of vision of the user, wherein the change is one of an actual change in the field of vision or a predicted change in the field of vision;
identifying a second group of FOV tiles of the video content, wherein the second group of FOV tiles comprises a portion of the first group of OOS tiles;
requesting the portion of the first group of OOS tiles;
receiving the portion of the first group of OOS tiles from the video server over the communication network, wherein the portion of the first group of OOS tiles are encoded using an enhancement layer of SVC; and
providing, to the display, the portion of the first group of OOS tiles according to the enhancement layer in conjunction with the providing of the first group of OOS tiles according to the first layer resulting in a high resolution version of the portion of the first group of OOS tiles, wherein the high resolution version of the portion of the first group of OOS tiles is presented on the display during a second time period.

2. The device of claim 1 , wherein the operations comprise identifying a version of the AVC used for the first group of FOV tiles, wherein the requesting of the portion of the first group of OOS tiles comprises requesting one or more enhancement layers of SVC for the portion of the first group of OOS tiles according to the version of the AVC used for the first group of FOV tiles from the video server, and wherein the receiving of the portion of the first group of OOS tiles comprises receiving the portion of the first group of OOS tiles from the video server over the communication network, wherein the portion of the first group of OOS tiles are encoded according to the one of more enhancements layers of SVC.

3. The device of claim 1 , wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises identifying the second group of FOV tiles based on the change of the field of vision for the user.

4. The device of claim 1 , wherein a virtual reality headset is communicatively coupled to the display.

5. The device of claim 1 , wherein the detecting of the change in the field of vision comprises detecting a head movement of the user viewing the first group of FOV tiles.

6. The device of claim 5 , wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the head movement of the user viewing the first group of FOV tiles.

7. The device of claim 1 , wherein the detecting of the change in the field of vision comprises determining a content type of the video content, and wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the content type.

8. The device of claim 1 , wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises:
retrieving historical information regarding a head movement of each of a plurality of users viewing the video content; and
identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the historical information.

9. The device of claim 1 , wherein the detecting of the change in the field of vision comprises implementing machine learning techniques on viewing reaction of each of a plurality of users viewing the video content, and wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the machine learning techniques.

10. The device of claim 1 , wherein the operations comprise identifying a third group of FOV tiles of the video content for a future viewing of the video content, wherein the third group of FOV tiles comprises the portion of the first group of OOS tiles.

11. The device of claim 1 , wherein the operations comprise:
identifying the user viewing the video content; and
determining a viewing history of the user.

12. The device of claim 11 , wherein identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the viewing history of the user.

13. The device of claim 1 , wherein the video content comprises 360 degree video content.

14. The device of claim 1 , wherein the identifying of the second group of FOV tiles comprises:
identifying a focus object within the video content; and
identifying the second group of FOV tiles according to the focus object.

15. A non-transitory, machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
determining available bandwidth of a communication network;
transmitting an indication of the available bandwidth to a video server over the communication network;
identifying a field of vision of a user;
identifying a first group of field of vision (FOV) tiles of video content and a first group of out of sight (OOS) tiles of the video content based on the field of vision of the user, wherein a portion of each of the group of FOV tiles is within the field of vision of the user and wherein each of group of OOS tiles are outside the field of vision of the user, wherein the first group of FOV tiles are received from the video server over the communication network and encoded using Advanced Video Coding (AVC), wherein the first group of OOS tiles are received from the video server over the communication network and encoded using a first layer of Scalable Video Coding (SVC), wherein the video server encodes the first group of FOV tiles using the AVC and encodes the first group of OOS tiles using the first layer of SVC based on the available bandwidth and the field of vision of the user;
providing the first group of FOV tiles and the first group of OOS tiles for presentation on a display communicatively coupled to a virtual reality headset, the first group of FOV tiles is presented on the display for viewing via the virtual reality headset during a first time period and the first group of OOS tiles is not presented on the display during the first time period;
det

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp
• Univ Indiana Trustees

Inventors

• Gopalakrishnan Vijay
• Han Bo
• Pair Jackson Jarrell
• Sharma Vikash
• Qian Feng

Classifications

• H04N13/161 Primary

  Encoding, multiplexing or demultiplexing different image signal components (for multi-view video sequence encoding H04N19/597) · CPC title

• H04N19/176

  the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock · CPC title

• H04N19/30 Primary

  using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability (H04N19/63 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04N13/366

  using viewer tracking · CPC title

• H04N19/187

  the unit being a scalable video layer · CPC title