Http live streaming (hls) video client synchronization

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016366198-A1
Application number	US-201615176827-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 8, 2016
Priority date	Jun 9, 2015
Publication date	Dec 15, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A streaming media server is provided that receives a request over a network from a customer premises gateway to receive a streaming media content item that is to be presented on two or more client devices in a synchronized manner. Responsive to the request, the streaming media server sends a manifest associated with the requested streaming media content item to the customer premises gateway only when it has been incrementally updated to remove an oldest media segment URL from the manifest and add a most recent media segment URL to the manifest.

First claim

1 . A method for delivering streaming media content from a streaming media server to at least two client devices through a common gateway so that the streaming media content is presented simultaneously by the client devices, comprising:
determining that a request received by a gateway from a first client device is a request to receive from a streaming media server media content that is to be synchronized with a presentation of the media content by a second client device that receives the media content through the gateway, the first and second client devices being of a common type that process streaming media in a common manner; (ii) sending the request from the gateway to the streaming media server; (iii) responsive to the request from the gateway, receiving at the gateway an initial manifest associated with the streaming media content, the initial manifest including a sequence of media segment URLs indicating an ordering of the media segments that create a representation of a portion of the streaming media content; (iv) sending one or more additional requests from the gateway to the streaming media server to receive an updated version of the initial manifest, the one or more additional requests being sent at time intervals that are less than a duration of the media segments in the initial manifest; (v) forwarding the updated version of the initial manifest and not the initial manifest itself to the first client device immediately upon receiving the updated manifest version at the gateway; (vi) receiving a request from the first client device to receive a selected media segment specified in the updated manifest version; (vii) forwarding the request for the selected media segment to the server and receiving the selected media segment in response; (viii) forwarding the selected media content to the first client device at a transmission rate greater than a rate at which the media segment plays out in real-time and less than a transmission rate available over a slower of a first or second transmission link, the first transmission link being between the gateway and the first client device and the second transmission link being between the gateway and the second client device; and (ix) repeating steps (i)-(viii) for the second client device.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the request to receive the media content is received by the gateway at a time subsequent to a time at which the request to receive the media content is received by the gateway from the first client device.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected media segment is a media segment sequentially located between a more recent and an oldest media segment included in the updated manifest version, the first and second client devices both selecting a media segment that has a common sequential location in the updated manifest version.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmission rate at which the selected media content is forwarded to the first client device over the first link is a transmission rate at which the selected media content is able to be transmitted to the second client device over the second link.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising forwarding subsequent media segments from the gateway to the first client device at a maximum transmission rate available over the first link.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the gateway is a router.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the gateway is a combined modem/router.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the request to receive synchronized streaming media content includes examining a destination network address of the request and intercepting requests having a network address associated with the streaming media server.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the media content is live content streamed in accordance with HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).

10 . A customer premises gateway, comprising:
a network-side interface for communicating over a wide-area network (WAN); a client-side interface establishing communication between the WAN and a plurality of client devices that process streaming media in a common manner; one or more processors: one or more computer-readable storage media containing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors perform a method for delivering streaming media content received over the WAN to the plurality of client devices, the method including:
receiving first and second requests from first and second client devices, respectively, to receive a common live streaming media content item that is to be synchronized on first and second client devices;
responding to the each of the first and second requests by ensuring that manifests associated with the common live streaming media content item are forwarded to the first and second client devices immediately after the manifests have been incrementally updated to include a URL for a new media segment;
responsive to requests from the first and second client devices to receive selected media segments specified in the updated versions of the manifests, sending the selected media segments to the first and second client devices at a transmission rate greater than a rate at which the media segments play out in real-time and less than a transmission rate available over a slower of a first or second transmission link, the first transmission link being between the client-side interface and the first client device and the second transmission link being between the client-side interface and the second client device.

11 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , wherein ensuring that the manifests are forwarded to the first and second client devices immediately after the manifests have been incrementally updated includes periodically polling a streaming media server over the WAN for updated versions of the manifests at time intervals that are shorter than a duration of the media segments.

12 . The customer premises gateway of claim 11 , wherein ensuring that the manifests are forwarded to the first and second client devices immediately after the manifest have been incrementally updated includes causing a script residing on a streaming media server that provides the manifests to send the manifests to the gateway as soon as they are updated.

13 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , wherein the second request from the second client device is received subsequent to a time at which the first request is received from the first client device.

14 . The customer premises gateway of claim 13 , wherein responding to the first and second requests includes forwarding different updated versions of the manifest to the first and second client device.

15 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , further comprising forwarding subsequent media segments from the gateway to the first client device at a maximum transmission rate available over the first link.

16 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , further comprising determining that the first and second requests to receive the common streaming media content item by examining destination network addresses of the first and second requests and intercepting requests having a network address associated with streaming media server.

17 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , wherein the media content item is live content streamed in accordance with HLS.

18 . The customer premises gateway of claim 10 , further comprising receiving the manifests and the selected media segments from a streaming media server over the wide-area network.

19 . One

Assignees

• Arris Entpr Llc

Inventors

• Jennings William W
• Clancy Paul A

Classifications

• H04N21/26258

  for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list (retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40) · CPC title

• H04N21/234

  Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• H04N21/8456

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

• H04L65/1069

  Session establishment or de-establishment · CPC title