System and method for the utilization of a low-latency video source

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11973995-B2
Application number	US-202117502273-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 15, 2021
Priority date	Oct 29, 2020
Publication date	Apr 30, 2024
Grant date	Apr 30, 2024

Abstract

A system and method for selectively utilizing an over-the-air broadcast source to provide low-latency content as an alternative to conventional over-the-top sourced content. The disclosed technology can provide automatic switching to an available low-latency content source, or switch to a low-latency source only after a user affirmatively elects such. The system and method are implemented utilizing standard premises equipment, and enable the insertion of regional commercial messages into the low-latency content stream prior to viewing.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for providing low-latency video content in an over-the-top content environment, comprising:
at least one media gateway appliance comprising at least one memory and at least one processor;
at least one client device linked to the at least one media gateway appliance;
at least one over-the-top video content source, linked to the at least one media gateway appliance; and
at least one low-latency video content source, linked to the at least one media gateway appliance;
wherein the at least one memory is adapted to store over-the-top video content metadata, low-latency video content availability information, and a predetermined maximum desirable delay value; and
wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
determine, based on at least the over-the-top video content, metadata whether the over-the-top video content is a live program;
in response to determining that the over-the-top video content is a live program, determine, based, at least in part, on the stored over-the-top video content information and the low-latency video content availability information, that video content presently being streamed to the at least one client device via the at least one gateway media appliance from the at least one over-top video content source is also available from the at least one low-latency video content source;
determine whether a delay between the over-the-top video content and a video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source exceeds the predetermined maximum desirable delay value stored in memory, and
replace, in response to the delay exceeding the predetermined maximum desirable delay value, the over-the-top video content stream to the at least one client device with the video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the replacement is performed without user intervention.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor is further adapted to:
detect the loss of a viable video content signal from the at least one low-latency video content source; and
replace the stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source to the at least one client device with the over-the-top video content stream based, at least in part, upon the detection.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the over-the-top video content metadata comprises at least one of the following:
content title;
content genre;
source descriptor;
content duration; and
content format.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the at least one memory is further adapted to store at least one particular commercial message; and
wherein the at least one processor is further adapted to:
detect commercial messages within the video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source;
retrieve the at least one particular commercial message from the at least one memory; and
replace at least one detected commercial message within the content stream originating from the low-latency video content source, with the retrieved at least one commercial message.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein he at least one processor is further adapted to:
measure the quality of the content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source; and
replace the low-latency video content stream to the at least one client device with the over-the-top video content that was previously streaming to the at least one client device.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor is further adapted to:
generate a message to inform a user of the determination that video content presently being streamed to the at least one client device via the at least one gateway media appliance from the at least one over-top video content source is also available from the at least one low-latency video content source; and
display the generated message via the at least one client device.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein:
the at least one processor is further adapted to calculate the latency between the video content presently being streamed to the at least one client device and the video content available from the at least one low-latency video content source, and
wherein the generation and display of the message is based, at least in part, upon the calculated latency.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein at least one processor is adapted to:
receive user responses communicated via the at least one client device; and
replace the over-the-top video content stream to the at least one client device with a video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source only after a particular user response is received.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the generated and displayed message comprises a text message presented as an overlay upon the video content presently being streamed to the at least one client device.

11. A method for providing low-latency video content, in a system comprising:
at least one client device linked to the at least one media gateway appliance;
at least one over-the-top video content source, linked to the at least one media gateway appliance;
at least one low-latency video content source, linked to the at least one media gateway appliance; and
at least one memory adapted to store over-the-top video content metadata, low-latency video content availability information, and a predetermined maximum desirable delay value;
wherein the method comprises the steps of:
determine, based on at least the over-the-top video content metadata, whether the over-the-top video content is a live program;
in response to determining that the over-the-top video content is a live program, determining, based, at least in part, on the stored over-the-top video content information and the low-latency video content availability information, that video content presently being streamed to the at least one client device via the at least one gateway media appliance from the at least one over-top video content source is also available from the at least one low-latency video content source;
determining whether a delay between the over-the-top video content and a video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source exceeds the predetermined maximum desirable delay value stored in the at least one memory, and
replacing, in response to the delay exceeding the predetermined maximum desirable delay value, the over-the-top video content stream to the at least one client device with a video content stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source based, at least in part, upon the determination.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the step of replacing is performed without user intervention.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising the steps of:
detecting the loss of a viable video content signal from the at least one low-latency video content source; and
replacing the stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source to the at least one client device with the over-the-top video content stream based, at least in part, upon the detection.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising the steps of:
detecting the loss of a viable video content signal from the at least one low-latency video content source; and
replacing the stream originating from the at least one low-latency video content source to the at least one client device with the over-the-top video content stream based, at least in part, upon the detection.

15. The method of

Assignees

• Arris Entpr Llc

Inventors

• Kahn Michael Robert

Classifications

• H04N21/23805 Primary

  Controlling the feeding rate to the network, e.g. by controlling the video pump · CPC title

• H04N21/2343

  involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements {(video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762)} · CPC title

• H04N21/2353

  specifically adapted to content descriptors, e.g. coding, compressing or processing of metadata · CPC title

• H04N21/4888

  for displaying teletext characters · CPC title

• H04N21/6473

  Monitoring network processes errors (for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40) · CPC title