AU2015101492A4 - A Technique, method and/or process to combine various sports content owners, and broadcasters to a common web platform to stream or publish live as well as pre-taped sporting events onto viewers mobiles, tablets, websites, Smart-TV app, gaming consoles, and any other form of connected media. This web platform will provide seamless connectivity to users, and access to multiple sporting events not necessarily associated to one particular broadcasters digital platform. This web platform will be an additional digital platform for small sports and existing broadcasters in the market. - Google Patents

Abstract

Abstract: Developing a web platform to combine various live or pre-taped sporting events happening across the globe, [0007] that can be accessible over the internet. The web platform will use software and hardware technology that will operate between users and multiple broadcasting severs simultaneously, where all broadcasters can upload a stream [0008] to publish live sporting events. The connectivity to multiple broadcasters and event content owners will provide viewers of the platform [0009] flexibility of choosing multiple sporting events from all broadcasters at one website. This will also provide broadcasters an additional promotional channel of the sports contents. i3iiF---- 15-- - Public Network 1041 - fii -:~t III1iMiM Gal ----------------- --------------- --- 4

Description

Description: Title of Invention: Technique, method and/or process to aggregate various multiple sporting event content publishers or broadcasters to a common web platform to let output or stream live or pre-taped sporting events onto viewers mobiles, tablets, websites, Smart-TV app, gaming consoles, and any other form of connected media. The web platform will provide seamless connectivity to viewers to access and view all sporting events from various broadcasters over internet.

Field: The invention relates to digital broadcasting systems, and more particularly to a system and method for combining sporting broadcasting or digital events owners over the internet.

Background art: [0001]On-demand television viewing is in motion and it is gaining popularity each day, many IPTV service providers supply their customers with a variety of on-demand contents. The on demand contents can be movies, sporting events, and the like. These contents are mostly sold as a bundle subscription or standalone subscription over the internet. This began consumer's attraction to on-demand services as it requires basic internet connection and it is easy to setup. The birth of smart mobile phones, tablets, smart TVs also increased the popularity of internet protocol TV among users. [0002]The IPTV service providers or Video on-demand service providers supply fix set of contents with their subscriptions. This might be because, service provider doesn't afford to own broadcasting rights for multiple contents, and also media regulations play a role in it. Current broadcasting model works with distributed content rights management system, where most of the times, content owner sells the content rights to one particular distributor who bids more for the content rights, or distributes the content to multiple broadcasters. For example, the live Footy season's broadcasting rights might have been distributed to two broadcasters, let's say, broadcaster 'X' allowed to air four matches a week during weekdays, and broadcaster 'Y' is allowed to air matches happening only on weekends. [0003] So, if customer subscribes to one particular service providers online channel then, it misses out on some events which are not available with current subscriber. For example, if customer has subscribed to broadcaster-X's online streaming service for viewing sports event then, customer might not get to see matches happening on weekends because the broadcasting rights are owned by broadcaster-Y. [0004]The problem with current setting is that the customer doesn't not have an online platform to view all sporting events happening across the globe, and most of the times, the domestic broadcasting channels work in closed ecosystem where broadcaster doesn't own rights to broadcast major sporting event happening outside of the country. For example, Australian Sport viewers must be demanding to view "Cricket Premier League T-20" tournament happening outside of the country, and also want to view a major foreign "Soccer Premier League" tournament. If customer subscribes to one of the broadcasters who owns the right to broadcast "Soccer premium league" matches but, not cricket T-20 matches then, in this instance, customer has to separately subscribe to "Cricket league" tournament some other online channel or let go watching it altogether. Likewise, "Cricket Australia" committee has separate online digital distribution platform which provides Australian viewers all Australian cricketing match's whole year, but customer has to separately subscribe and maintain the account with cricket Australia and does the case with NRL matches, and with Tennis tournaments. So, various customers might have demands for various other sport events at the same time of the year, but does not necessarily have one common online platform where all events can be streamed to customers online. Currently in the market FoxTel provides few online sporting events along with other movie and TV show subscriptions. [0005]Basically this makes customer spend more money on the various subscriptions online with various service providers, which also makes it difficult to manage various subscription accounts and end up paying more money for it. Also, if customer loses interest in the event because customer always have to create a separate profile and buy subscriptions from each different service providers all the time for every sporting event, then customer may choose an option to go with illegal streaming contents over the internet which promotes illegal activities on internet. [0006]In a nutshell, there is no combined online platform to view only sporting events online which are streamlined and easy to access to end user. Even though various broadcaster currently have multiple sports events online available, they work in a closed eco system where customer has to view what is available with the subscribed broadcaster.

Solution to Problem: [0007]What is needed is a new, more flexible online web platform for viewing all sport events happening across the globe that will satisfy consumer's desire to flexibility in viewing, and confidence that, once customers are registered and paid for a service, they will be able to access and stream any sport events live or pre-taped onto one single web site or online application with one account access. [0008]The online web platform will connect with various sport broadcaster's to output the live stream and pre-taped sport events from various broadcasting servers. For example, one of the foreign cricket event is streamed online by the foreign broadcaster, let's say 'StarSports', the other "Soccer league" contents are being streamed online by 'FoxSports', and cricket Australia streaming live cricket matches with separate online platform. So there are three separate websites to view online streaming. The aggregated online web platform will allow all broadcasters to stream all sporting events via one single website, so that customers can easily view any of the sporting events as preferred with one click access. Likewise, there can be other various broadcasters or online sport publishers who can stream multiple sport contents via the same web platform for consumers to pick and choose form hundreds of other sporting events. This makes it an aggregate web platform for sports viewing. [0009]The connectivity with multiple broadcasters will provide user a freedom to view any sport events happening across the globe, and also customer need not maintain multiple online accounts with various service providers. With the rise of mobile devices and smart TVs, the online platform will also connect to smart phones, smart TVs, gaming consoles, PCs, laptops, providing freedom for consumers to view events at any given time on multiple devices.

Brief description of drawings: Fig 1 is a diagram to illustrate the concept of invention at high level. Fig 2 is a diagram to illustrate a particular embodiment of an end to end view of how web platform will be connected to multiple broadcaster's servers FIG 2. Fig 3 is a diagram to illustrate the concept of integrating various instances of same sporting event spread across various broadcasters onto one single webpage using software programming.

Detailed Description: Fig. 1 is a diagram of a particular embodiment of a concept on which the invention is based upon. System and Method 200 represent the concept of invention. System and Method 200 is made up of four major components, component 201 is group of content owners which owns the video/image contents or who captures live images and videos as any event progress, the event might be anything happening live such as any Sporting event. There can be multiple live events happen in parallel, the live feed can be captured by video cameras installed at the event by content owners 202, 203, 204, or 205 which transmits the live feed in form of video or images to respective broadcasting servers 206, 207, 208, 209 which has been granted the permission to output the event live to their subscribed consumers. For example, the live feed is being captured with camera 202 which belongs to let's say a "FOOTY" league Australia, and camera 203 belongs to "Cricket Australia". When live sporting event is underway, camera 202 and 203 will start streaming the live feed to server 206, and 207 respectively. Sever 206 and 207 are broadcasting servers belong to may be TV channels who might have got the permission to publish the content to their audience. In this particular embodiment, server 211 is the common platform which can be built between consumers and broadcasting severs where all broadcasters can have one common platform to publish any live sporting events subscribed by consumers of the platform. This may make them the indirect customers of the platform. End user devices 212, such as laptop, PC, smartphone, and tablets and other connected device will be used to output the live stream to consumers. Consumer's devices will be capable of playing videos, audio's, and images over the internet. Consumer can request to view any sporting event which is available on the common platform 211 (May be a website, or an application which can be accessed via smart phone, tablet, or gaming consoles), the request will be sent out to various broadcasting servers based on the publishers mapping present on the server 211 database, the live stream data will then be sent back to customers devices 212. FIG.2 is a diagram of a particular embodiment of a system 100 that is operable to connect to various 'broadcasting servers to collect the video feed including audio, video, and images distribute it to multiple user devices 102. The system 100 includes server 104 is configured to send and receive the data from various other devices (e.g. via a network, such as a local area network (LAN) or the Internet). For example server 104 may communicate with multiple user playback devices 102 to receive the request from user. The server 104 may include one or more processors 109 and various components that are executable by the processer 109. The server 104 may correspond to software application(s) that perform serving or processing hardware system (e.g. Server) that support or perform media serving and processing or any combination thereof. Thus, various operations described with reference to the server 104, or component thereof, may be implemented using hardware, software (e.g. instructions executable by processor(s) build within inside), or any combination thereof. The server 104 may be accessible via a network (e.g. The Internet). The server 104 may be located may be part of a cloud network or content delivery network (CDN), or may be in some other location. The server 104 may include one or more network interfaces 109, and 110 may include input interface(s) and output interface(s) that are configured to receive data and to send data, respectively. In a particular embodiment, the network interface(s) 109 may be a wired or wireless interface that enable the server 104 to communicate the data via a network, such as the internet. For example, the network interface(s) may include Ethernet interface, a wireless interface compatible with an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) 802.11 (E.g. Wi-Fi) protocol, or other wired or wireless interfaces. In the embodiment of Fig.2, the server 104 receives the request from number of user across requesting to stream live feed of any particular sport event or any pre-taped event from source 101 via various connected devices 102 (e.g. Personal computers, Smart Phone devices, Tablet devices, gaming consoles etc.), the request can be transmitted via the internet. These request(s) can be simultaneously requested or could be a sequence of event(s) to server based on number of users connected and requesting to stream the data. As used herein. A "live" stream may differ from a "video on demand" (VOD) stream. A VOD stream originates from, or corresponds to, content that is available in its entirety at a stream source when a packet of a VOD is sent. For example a VOD stream may correspond to a movie or television show that is stored at a storage device. A live stream corresponds to content that is not available in its entirety when a packet of a live stream is sent. For example, a live stream may be transmit to send audio and/or video content corresponding to an event as the event is being captured(e.g. in real time or non-real time). Examples of such event may include, but are not limited to, in-progress sporting events, musical performances, video conferences, and webcam feeds. It should be noted that a live stream may be delayed with respect to the event being captured (e.g., in accordance with government or industry regulations, such as delay regulations enforced by any government body of the particular country. Although one of more embodiments described herein are associated with publication of live stream as well as pre-taped events which will act a VOD streams. The server 104 may include a system "Request Distributor service" (RDS) 109, which will contain various network communication components to collect the request from various users 101 via public web site 103 accessible via various communications devices 102. The system 109 will also hold a broadcasting servers mapping information that will decide which broadcasting server 111 needs to be contacted to request the live or pre-taped event feed. The mapping system 109 will sort out and map the incoming request to broadcasting server, for example, userl might request the feed which is available on "broadcasting server x" 112, and user 2 might request a feed which is available on "broadcasting server y" 113, likewise there might be other multiple users requesting to view various events which are available on different broadcasting servers. The system 109 will map each users request and send a request to respective broadcasting servers via public network 116 i.e. the internet in real time to fetch the required event feed. The system 109 will also understand if the user has requested a feed which is live or pre-taped and available on broadcaster's server. The broadcasting servers 111 will respond to incoming server request from 104 platform and send the requested feed (e.g. live, audio only, video only, or audio video only stream) and files (e.g. VOD items) to network components 110 via public network 116. The network component 110 may include one or more encoders, decoders, and transcoders, each of which may be implement using hardware or software. For example, one or more of the encoder(s), decoder(s) and transcoder(s) may be implemented using C++ instructions, java programming languages. The decoder(s) may decode data received stream (i.e. live audio only, video only, both Audio-video stream) and files (e.g. VOD items) and encoder may encode the media that is to be transmitted by the media server. The transcoder may be configured to perform bitrate conversion, frame size conversion, etc. Depending on the format of the received stream from the broadcasting servers 111. In this embodiment the transcoder are programmed or configured as a templates at server platform 104. Thus network component 110 helps server platform 104 to process data in accordance with multiple coding technologies and protocol. The server 104 may support communication (e.g. adaptive streaming and non-adaptive streaming) protocol including, but not limited to, hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) live streaming (HLS), HTTP dynamic streaming (HDS), smooth streaming, and MPEG dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP(MPEG-DASH). The media server 104 may also support real time messaging protocol (RTMP) (and variants thereof), real-time streaming protocol (RTSP), real time transport protocol (RTP), and MPEG-2 transport stream. Additional audio format, coder/decoder and protocols may also be supported. In accordance with the described techniques, the server 104 may include a "user feed distributor and stream data recorder" (UFDSDR) 117 system, it may be a software that is build or purchased and installed on the platform 104. The UFDSDR may be associated with "request distributor service" 109 to track and distribute the content back to correct users devices 102. For e.g. User(s) 101, which has requested to view any live event it could be called "LiveStream ", the RDS 109 holds the information of related all users and what event has been requested, respective broadcasting server(s) 111 streams back the requested data, network components 110, processes the data and UFDSDR 117 collects the stream of data and communicates with RDS to identify where to publish the live stream such as host address, port destination and other authentication information. The UFDSDR 117 may be capable of managing multiple feed requests coming from broadcasting server(s) 111, the system 117 will also record the mapping of user to streamed data to broadcasting server and will be sent to store in database 118, this data may use to produce the report which will generate the data on how many bytes of stream has been viewed by one particular user and from which broadcasting server. There might one user viewing the data across multiple broadcasting server. The report will also help understand what is users preferred videos or events and it may also help broadcasting channels to understand how much of data has been streamed so that it can be used various other business and commercial purposes.

In a particular embodiment, the UFDSDR 117 includes an information of each of a plurality of protocols and/or publishing destinations. For example, the server 104 may utilize variety of protocols (e.g. such as RTMP,RTP, MPEG etc.) to transfer the requested stream of data to multiple users playback devices 102, such as laptop or desktop computing devices, smartphone(wireless telephone), and a tablet computer, publishing devices may also include servers or stream relay servers. During operation, the server 104 may receive the request for first live stream (may be called - stream) from multiple users from user group 101, and another request of live stream (may be called - stream2) from another user from user group 101. The request will be simultaneously processed by RDS 109, and with the help of mapping resides within RDS 109, the system will connect to respective broadcasting server. For example, if stream is a request of live sport event 'x', the RDS 109 will redirect the request to "broadcasting server x" 112. Likewise if stream2 is a request to stream live event 'y', then RDS 109 will redirect the request to stream the data "Broadcasting server y" 113. Once the request reaches the respective broadcasting servers, servers will start sending back the requested feed to server 104, and it will reach network component 110, which intern will decode the data coming from "broadcasting server x" i.e. stream 1 and "broadcasting server y" i.e. stream2. The network component 110 will transfer the stream data packets with certain headers which might contain the information of user the packet belongs to, the information of user could be feed in by RDS 109 while originating the packet request. UFDSDR 117 will contact RDS 109 for additional user information such as host address etc. once combined with the address UFDSDR 117 will then redirect the stream and stream2 to respective users requested the data. Thus the module may enable requesting multiple streaming requests to multiple broadcasting servers and will combine the response from multiple servers and distribute it back to respective user(s) requested for the stream. Fig3. Is a diagram to illustrate the system and a method wherein an aggregated online platform can combine the feeds from different broadcasting servers, and arrange them on the web pages or application dynamically and in logical sequence. In this particular embodiment the system 300 is an illustration of how multiple stream coming from various broadcasters server can be combined into a meaningful series of videos that can be easily understandable by the user. In this illustration the broadcasting server X 310, Y 315 and Z 320 channeling the live events through aggregated sports online platform 325. The broadcasting servers uses an Application programing interface (API) 330 to collected the required live video stream information and other necessary information which is required to display it on the web site 335, 340 or any form of application on users devices. During operation the broadcasterX 310 is publishing the live sport content of any sports event for e.g. Footy season 1 matches 1 to 4 via aggregated sport broadcaster online platform 325, the end user accessible web page or an application page 335 might contain an icon for footy league season. BroadcasterY 310 will access the API 330 to feed in the information and live events that server 310 might want to publish, all the information might be displayed in a group under footy season 1 on a single web page 335. Likewise, broadcaster Y 315 has content rights of the same footy season, but different matches let's say matches 6 - 9. Broadcaster Y 315 might want to publish matches 6 to 9 for footy season through aggregated sports broadcasters' online platform 325. Aggregated platform 325 will collect the match information from BroadcasterY 315 via API 330 and will merge them into one footy season user webpage or user application page so that all matches are not being displayed under one single view under one single logical footy series, wherein user might be able to view all matches streaming from different broadcasters. Event if there is single broadcaster, like broadcasterZ 320 which has separate sports content to publish with whole season of sports matches, the broadcaster might be able to perform it by consuming API 330 of the aggregating platform 325.

Claims (6)

1. A method and a system comprising: Aggregation of various sporting event broadcasters, or sporting event content owners broadcasting various sporting events, onto one online digital platform to provide an ability for multiple sporting event broadcasters or publisher or sports event content owners to output live or pre-taped sporting events real time over the internet; creating an application programming interface (API) software which exposes "aggregated sports broadcasting" platform's features to broadcasting servers or content owner's servers, wherein multiple servers can connect, and access the aggregated web platforms to publish or stream live or pre-taped sporting events; receiving and identifying multiple and simultaneous requests from multiple users to stream specific sporting contents, and then automatically redirecting the user's request to specific broadcasting server in real time using the broadcasting server mapping stored on the aggregated web platform; receiving and identifying multiple stream of data from various broadcasting servers, and automatically mapping each stream to specific users request in real-time using the entries stored in user mapping database and transmitting the requested stream to users' requested device.

2. The method of claim 1. Wherein developing an aggregated sport broadcasting platform in form of a website, mobile application, tablet application, gaming console application, smart TV application, IPTV application and other application for connected devices accessible to public over the internet to stream and view multiple live and pre-taped sporting events on the aggregated sports broadcasting online platform.

3. The method of claim 1. Design or Implement a system or method to consume multiple simultaneous requests from customers or users requesting to view live or pre-taped sporting events; distribute the request in real time to each separate respective broadcasting servers owning the publishing rights of the specific sports content to stream high definition or standard definition videos.

4. The method of claim 1. Wherein method or software system provides broadcaster's to use published Application programming interfaces (APIs) from the aggregated sports broadcasters platform, using which multiple broadcasters can connect with the aggregated platform instantly and start publishing the contents immediately and sequentially.

5. The method of claims. Wherein collecting the various instances of same sporting events from various broadcasting servers or content owners, combining them, and publishing it all into one sequential and logical video series to clearly distinguish the difference between various sporting videos, live events and past events

6. The aggregated platform comprising: a user mapping database where each user entry and subscriptions information is stored so whenever user requests to view any media content the database will invoke a query to know if the user have correct permission to view the requested game feed. a database mapping wherein all broadcasting server information is captured, the information can be used to redirect user request to correct broadcasting server where feed request can be made and received. The information can be used to arrange content in logical and sequential manner. Contains a system which is a combination of software program and hardware elements to manage simultaneous incoming video streams from broadcasters, and it to correct user devices in real-time.