Playing control method and apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10999645-B2
Application number	US-201916409581-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 10, 2019
Priority date	Nov 11, 2016
Publication date	May 4, 2021
Grant date	May 4, 2021

Abstract

A play control method includes obtaining a playing state of at least one of a plurality of terminals playing a same video; and controlling a playing progress of at least one of the plurality of terminals when the playing state meets a preset condition. Using the disclosed play control method and apparatus for a plurality of terminals playing a same video, playing synchronization of the plurality of terminals can be maintained under a premise of ensuring that the plurality of terminals do not miss each video segment, so that no communication barrier is resulted due to asynchronous video playing during interactions between users who watch the same video, thus being able to improve user experience.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method implemented by one or more computing devices, the method comprising:
obtaining a playing state of at least one terminal of a plurality of terminals playing a video;
obtaining playing progresses of the plurality of terminals;
determining a reference terminal from the plurality of terminals according to the playing progresses of the plurality of terminals; and
controlling a playing progress of the at least one terminal of the plurality of terminals according to the reference terminal when the playing state meets a preset condition.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
controlling the playing progress of the at least one terminal of the plurality of terminals when the playing state meets the preset condition comprises:
separately calculating a difference between the playing progress of each of the plurality of terminals and the playing progress of the reference terminal; and
sending a playing progress adjusting instruction to a first terminal of the plurality of terminals upon determining that the difference is greater than a first preset value, to cause the first terminal to adjust a playing speed until the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal satisfies a first preset condition, wherein the first terminal is any terminal in the plurality of terminals other than the reference terminal.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the reference terminal from the plurality of terminals according to the playing progresses of the plurality of terminals comprises:
determining a terminal having a slowest playing progress as the reference terminal from the plurality of terminals; or
determining a terminal having a fastest playing progress as the reference terminal from among the plurality of terminals.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and playing progress of the reference terminal satisfying the first preset condition comprises:
the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal being zero; or
the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal being less than or equal to a second preset value, wherein the second preset value is determined based on the first preset value, and the second preset value is less than the first preset value.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein controlling the playing progress of the at least one terminal of the plurality of terminals according to the reference terminal when the playing state satisfies the preset condition comprises:
detecting that the playing state of the second terminal meets a second preset condition;
sending a playing pause instruction to one or more third terminals other than the second terminal of the plurality of terminals, to cause the one or more third terminals to pause playing the video, wherein the second terminal is any one of the plurality of terminals;
sending a voting requesting message to the one or more third terminals, to cause the one or more third terminals to return voting results according to the voting requesting message, wherein the voting requesting message is used for requesting each terminal in the one or more third terminals to vote whether to wait for the second terminal;
collecting statistics on the voting results to obtain a statistical result; and
sending a playing resume instruction to the one or more third terminals to cause the one or more third terminals to continue playing the video in response to determining that the statistical result is not to wait for the second terminal.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the playing state of the second terminal satisfying the second preset condition comprises at least one of:
the second terminal pausing playing of the video; or
the second terminal being disconnected from a server.

7. One or more computer readable media storing executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising:
obtaining a playing state of a first terminal playing a video;
sending the playing state of the first terminal to a server, causing the server to obtain playing progresses of a plurality of terminals, and determine a reference terminal from the plurality of terminals according to the playing progresses, wherein the plurality of terminals include the first terminal;
receiving, from the server, a play control instruction determined based upon the reference terminal and the playing state of the first terminal satisfying a preset condition; and
performing a play control on the first terminal according to the play control instruction.

8. The one or more computer readable media of claim 7 , wherein:
receiving, from the server, the play control instruction from the server, further comprises:
receiving the play control instruction for adjusting the playing progress of the first terminal from the server upon determining that a difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal is greater than a first preset value; and

performing the play control on the first terminal according to the play control instruction further comprises:
adjusting a playing speed according to the play control instruction for adjusting the playing progress of the first terminal until the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal satisfies a first preset condition.

9. The one or more computer readable media of claim 8 , wherein adjusting the playing speed according to the play control instruction for adjusting the playing progress of the first terminal comprises:
decreasing the playing speed according to the play control instruction for adjusting the playing progress of the first terminal if the playing progress of the reference terminal is slower than the playing progress of the first terminal; or
increasing the playing speed according to the play control instruction for adjusting the playing progress of the first terminal if the playing progress of the reference terminal is faster than the playing progress of the first terminal.

10. The one or more computer readable media of claim 8 , wherein the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal satisfying the first preset condition comprises:
the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal being zero; or
the difference between the playing progress of the first terminal and the playing progress of the reference terminal being less than or equal to a second preset value, wherein the second preset value is determined based on the first preset value, and the second preset value is less than the first preset value.

11. The one or more computer readable media of claim 7 , wherein performing the play control on the first terminal according to the play control instruction comprise:
pausing playing the video on the first terminal in accordance with the play control instruction.

12. The one or more computer readable media of claim 7 , the acts further comprising
receiving a voting requesting message from the server, and
returning a voting result to the server according to the voting requesting message.

13. The one or more computer readable media of claim 7 , wherein performing the play control on the first terminal according to the play control instruction comprise:
continuing pla

Assignees

• Alibaba Group Holding Ltd

Inventors

• Song Yang
• Liu Juncheng
• Xu Hao
• Li Jie
• Pan Baiyu
• Wang Ji

Classifications

• H04N21/6582

  Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number (arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38) · CPC title

• H04N21/6543 Primary

  for forcing some client operations, e.g. recording {(remote booting in general G06F9/4416)} · CPC title

• H04N21/4424

  Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used (error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04) · CPC title

• H04N21/43076

  of the same content streams on multiple devices, e.g. when family members are watching the same movie on different devices · CPC title

• H04N21/41407

  embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop (constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57) · CPC title