System and method for low-latency content streaming

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11025962-B2
Application number	US-201113036927-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2011
Priority date	Feb 28, 2011
Publication date	Jun 1, 2021
Grant date	Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

Embodiments of a system and method for low-latency content streaming are described. In various embodiments, multiple data fragments may be sequentially generated. Each data fragment may represent a distinct portion of media content generated from a live content source. Each data fragment may include multiple sub-portions. Furthermore, for each data fragment, generating that fragment may include sequentially generating each sub-portion of that fragment. Embodiments may include, responsive to receiving a request for a particular data fragment from a client during the generation of a particular sub-portion of that particular data fragment, providing the particular sub-portion to the client subsequent to that particular sub-portion being generated and prior to the generation of that particular data fragment being completed in order to reduce playback latency at the client relative to the live content source.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
sequentially generating multiple data fragments that each represent a distinct temporal segment of media content generated from a live content source, and each data fragment including multiple sub-portions representing smaller temporal segments of each data fragment, said generating comprising sequentially generating each sub-portion of the data fragments;
transmitting bootstrap data to a client device, the bootstrap data mapping time periods to respective ones of the multiple data fragments, and from which the client device determines a data fragment to request;
receiving a request for the data fragment from the client device based on the bootstrap data, the request being received during generation of a sub-portion of the data fragment; and
responsive to said receiving the request for the data fragment, providing the sub-portion of the data fragment to the client device subsequent to the sub-portion being completed and prior to generation of a next sub-portion of the data fragment being completed in order to reduce playback latency from the live content source to the client device.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the multiple data fragments represent different consecutive time periods of the media content from the live content source.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein for a given data fragment, the multiple sub-portions within that data fragment represent different consecutive time periods of the media content represented by that given data fragment.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the multiple sub-portions are generated to represent an equal period of time of the media content.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the media content generated from the live content source is encoded according to an inter-frame compression standard utilizing key frames, the method further comprising generating each sub-portion of at least some of the multiple sub-portions to begin with a key frame and subsequent frames within each respective multiple sub-portion that begins with the key frame are dependent upon that key frame.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein providing the sub-portion of the data fragment to the client device comprises providing the sub-portion as a chunk according to chunked transfer encoding specified by Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the media content generated from the live content source is formatted such that each sub-portion of a given data fragment maps to a single chunk according to the chunked transfer encoding.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting the bootstrap data to the client device comprises transmitting metadata that includes the bootstrap data to the client device.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the media content generated from the live content source represents at least one of: a live sporting event or a live video conference.

10. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving bootstrap data from a remote system that sequentially generates multiple data fragments that each represent a distinct temporal segment of media content generated from a live content source, each data fragment including multiple sub-portions representing smaller temporal segments of a respective data fragment, and the bootstrap data mapping time periods to respective ones of the multiple data fragments;
determining a data fragment to request for playback of the data fragment based on a time period that maps to the data fragment as indicated by the bootstrap data;
providing a request for the data fragment to the remote system based on the bootstrap data, the request being provided during generation of a sub-portion of the data fragment;
receiving the sub-portion of the data fragment from the remote system subsequent to the sub-portion being completed and prior to generation of a next sub-portion of the data fragment being completed; and
initiating the playback of the sub-portion of the data fragment prior to the generation of a next sub-portion of the data fragment being completed in order to reduce playback latency from the live content source.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving additional sub-portions of the data fragment from the remote system in response to said providing the request for the data fragment; and
discarding one or more of the additional sub-portions of the data fragment prior to said initiating the playback.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the multiple data fragments represent different consecutive time periods of the media content from the live content source.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein for a given data fragment, the multiple sub-portions within that data fragment represent different consecutive time periods of the media content represented by that given data fragment.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein at least some of the multiple sub-portions are generated to represent an equal period of time of the media content.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the media content is encoded according to an inter-frame compression standard utilizing key frames, wherein at least some of the multiple sub-portions begin with a key frame and wherein subsequent frames within each respective multiple sub-portion that begins with the key frame are dependent upon that key frame.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein receiving the sub-portion comprises receiving the sub-portion as a chunk according to chunked transfer encoding specified by Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16 , wherein the media content generated from the live content source is formatted such that each sub-portion of a given data fragment maps to a single chunk according to the chunked transfer encoding.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the receiving the bootstrap data from the remote system comprises receiving metadata that includes the bootstrap data.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , further comprising determining a current time and determining another data fragment to request based on which data fragment of the multiple data fragments corresponds to the current time as specified by the mapping of the received metadata.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the media content generated from the live content source represents at least one of: a live sporting event or a live video conference.

21. A system, comprising:
a memory; and
at least one processor coupled to the memory, the memory comprising program instructions executable by the at least one processor to:
sequentially generate multiple data fragments that each represent a distinct temporal segment of media content generated from a live content source, and each data fragment including multiple sub-portions representing smaller temporal segments of each data fragment, and each sub-portion of the data fragments sequentially generated;
transmit bootstrap data to a client device, the bootstrap data mapping time periods to respective ones of the multiple data fragments, and from which the client device determines a data fragment to request;
receive a request for the data fragment from the client de

Assignees

• Swaminathan Viswanathan
• Wei Sheng
• Manapragada Srinivas R
• Adobe Inc

Inventors

• Swaminathan Viswanathan
• Wei Sheng
• Manapragada Srinivas R

Classifications

• H04N21/6125

  involving transmission via Internet (transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82) · CPC title

• H04N21/2187 Primary

  Live feed · CPC title

• H04N21/8456

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