Fractional pre-delivery of content to user devices for uninterrupted playback

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9742861-B2
Application number	US-201414549450-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 20, 2014
Priority date	Nov 20, 2013
Publication date	Aug 22, 2017
Grant date	Aug 22, 2017

Abstract

Systems and methods for delivering fractions of content to user devices before the content is selected or requested (e.g., a pre-delivery of content) are described. In some embodiments, the systems and methods receive an indication that content is available for pre-delivery from a content server to a user device over a network, determine a fraction (e.g., size) of the content available for pre-delivery that satisfies one or more predicted content playback conditions, and causes the determined fraction of the content available for pre-delivery to be delivered to the user device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving an indication that first content is available for pre-delivery from a content server to a user device over a network;
determining minimum consumption credit function (CCF) values based on a rate of consumption of second content by the user device and a rate of delivery of the second content to the user device from a remote content source, the second content being previously delivered to the user device;
generating a cumulative-distribution function (CDF) curve that plots the determined minimum CCF values versus uninterrupted playback probabilities associated with the user device;
selecting a fraction of the first content that is associated with the desired uninterrupted playback probability using the CDF curve;
and
causing the converted fraction of the first content to be delivered to the user device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second content includes content of a certain file size of the first content.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the the second content includes content previously delivered to the user device over the same network type as a network type over which the fraction of the first content is delivered.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second content includes content encoded with the same bit rate as the first content.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second content includes content previously delivered to the user device at a certain location of the user device during a playback event of the first content.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
predicting a delivery network via which the content is to be delivered to the user device during a playback event of the content,
wherein the CDF curve is generated based on the predicted delivery network used during the playback event.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
predicting one or more delivery network conditions via which the content is to be delivered to the user device during a playback event of the content,
wherein the CDF curve is generated based on the predicted one or more delivery network conditions associated with a delivery network used during the playback event.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determined fraction of the content is adjusted based on a current playback performance of the first content by the user device.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein causing the determined fraction of the first content to be delivered to the user device includes causing the determined fraction to be delivered to the user device before the user device receives a request to consume the determined fraction.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
selecting the second content to correspond to content previously delivered to the user device at a location where the user device is predicted to play back the first content, and to content played back by the user device at a time when the user device is predicted to play back the first content.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user device is a first user device, and
wherein the minimum consumption credit function (CCF) values are further based on a rate of consumption of third content by a second user device and a rate of delivery of the third content to the second user device from a remote content source, the third content corresponding to content previously delivered to the second user device at a location where the first user device is predicted to play back the first content, and to content played back by the second user device at a time when the user device is predicted to play back the first content.

12. A system supported by a mobile device, the system comprising:
a content module that receives an indication that first content is available for pre-delivery from a content server to a user device over a network;
a content fraction module that determines a fraction of the first content that is associated with a desired uninterrupted playback probability; and
a pre-delivery module that causes the determined fraction of the first content to be delivered to the user device,
wherein the content fraction module:
determines minimum consumption credit function (CCF) values based on a rate of consumption of second content by the user device and a rate of delivery of the second content to the user device from a remote content source, the second content being previously delivered to the user device;
generates a cumulative-distribution function (CDF) curve that plots the determined minimum CCF values versus uninterrupted playback probabilities associated with the user device; and
selects a fraction of the first content that is associated with the desired uninterrupted playback probability using the CDF curve.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the second content includes content of a certain file size of the first content.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the second content includes content previously delivered to the user device over the same network type as the network type over which the first content is delivered.

15. The system of claim 12 , wherein the second content includes content encoded with the same bit rate as the first content.

16. The system of claim 12 , wherein the second content includes content previously delivered to the user device at a certain location of the user device during a playback event of the first content.

17. The system of claim 12 , wherein the content fraction module determines the minimum consumption credit function values for the consumption credit function when the user device is actively requesting the first content from a remote content source.

18. The system of claim 12 , wherein the content fraction module:
predicts a delivery network via which the first content is to be delivered to the user device during a playback event of the content,
wherein the CDF curve is generated based on the predicted delivery network used during the playback event.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium whose contents, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations, comprising:
receiving an indication that first content is available for pre-delivery from a content server to a user device over a network;
determining minimum consumption credit function (CCF) values based on a rate of consumption of second content by the user device and a rate of delivery of the second content to the user device from a remote content source, the second content being previously delivered to the user device over a delivery network via which the first content is predicted to be delivered during a playback event;
generating a cumulative-distribution function (CDF) curve that plots the determined minimum CCF values versus uninterrupted playback probabilities associated with the user device;
selecting a fraction of the first content that is associated with the desired uninterrupted playback probability using the CDF curve; and
causing the determined fraction of the first content to be delivered to the user device.

Assignees

• Opanga Networks Inc

Inventors

• Harrang Jeffrey Paul
• Westerfield Giles
• Burnette John
• Gibbons David

Classifications

• G06F16/00

  Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor · CPC title

• G06F17/30

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L67/2847

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/2842 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/5681 Primary

  Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics · CPC title