Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/06—Protocols specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L65/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication
  • H04L65/80—Responding to QoS
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/02—Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1001—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1001—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
  • H04L67/1004—Server selection for load balancing
  • H04L67/101—Server selection for load balancing based on network conditions
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1001—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
  • H04L67/1038—Load balancing arrangements to avoid a single path through a load balancer
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/34—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications involving the movement of software or configuration parameters 
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1001—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
  • H04L67/1004—Server selection for load balancing
  • H04L67/1021—Server selection for load balancing based on client or server locations
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1001—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
  • H04L67/1004—Server selection for load balancing
  • H04L67/1023—Server selection for load balancing based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
  • H04L69/30—Definitions, standards or architectural aspects of layered protocol stacks
  • H04L69/32—Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
  • H04L69/322—Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions
  • H04L69/329—Intralayer communication protocols among peer entities or protocol data unit [PDU] definitions in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Definitions

• the invention relates to a system and method for optimizing the retrieval and playback of audio and video data distributed via the Internet. More particularly, this invention is directed to a software tool which allows the user to: (a) select optimum delivery sites for more rapid and error ' free delivery of audio/video data; (b) download audio/video player software from distributed Internet servers; (c) detect and update multimedia software components; and (d) provide easy access to enriched audio/video content.
• the Internet is a loose network of connected computers spread throughout the world.
• a message can be sent from any computer on the Internet to any other by specifying a destination address and passing the message from computer to computer via a series of "hops.”
• Each computer, or "node,” on the Internet has a unique Internet address.
• the computer checks the intended destination of the message and passes it along accordingly.
• the Internet is growing, in terms of both size and sophistication, at a rapid rate. In the past, most users of the Internet were academic, research, or institutional users; the Internet was primarily used at that time to transmit and receive electronic mail and network news and to allow transfer of computer files.
• Web pages often consisting primarily of text and graphical material, are stored on numerous computers, known as “Web servers,” throughout the Internet. These Web pages are generally described, in terms of layout and content, by way of a language known as "HTML” (HyperText Markup Language) .
• HTML HyperText Markup Language
• Any particular computer linked to the Internet can store one or more Web pages, i.e. computer files in HTML format, for access by users.
• a software program known as a "browser” can be used to access and view Web pages across the Internet by specifying the location (i.e. Internet address) of the desired Web page, or more commonly, by "hotlinking" to Web pages.
• Two of the most popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator.
• the desired Web page is specified by a uniform resource locator ("URL"), indicating the precise location of the HTML file in the format "http: //internet. address/directory/filename.html” .
• URL uniform resource locator
• Hotlinking is accomplished as follows.
• the user first accesses a Web page having a known address, often on the computer located at the user's ISP (Internet Service Provider) .
• the ISP is the organization providing Internet connectivity to the user.
• That Web page can contain, in addition to textual and visual data specified in HTML format, "links," or embedded information (in the form of URLs) pointing to the Internet addresses of other Web pages, often on other computers throughout the Internet.
• the user by selecting a link (often by pointing and clicking with a mouse) , can then access other Web pages, which can in turn contain further data and/or additional links.
• When a Web page is accessed its information is transmitted from the remote computer, wherever in the world it may be located, across the Internet, to the user.
• video files can be very large, from approximately 10 megabytes to 10 gigabytes.
• the files In order to play video files at speeds approaching their recorded rate at a user's terminal, the files have to be delivered at a fast, constant speed. Too slow, and the image plays back slower than originally recorded. If the speed is uneven, then the video appears jerky, like an old-time movie.
• This pattern exemplifies a "downward spiral" of network performance driven by the attempted transmission of large amounts of video-type data traffic. As long as network traffic remains within the limits imposed by network bandwidth, network performance will remain acceptable. However, whenever peak network loads exceed capacity, the downward spiral described above will begin, causing increasing periods of poor network performance.
• mirror sites Each mirror site contains information that is identical to that of the original site. For example, if a popular Web site is located in New York, mirror sites might be located in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo. Accordingly, if a European user is having difficulty accessing the New York original site, he can hotlink to the mirror site that is geographically closest, i.e. London.
• mirror sites are not necessarily ideally placed on the network. Although mirror sites may be geographically widely distributed, they might not be sufficiently separated on the network. Returning to the foregoing example, the New York original Web site and the Los Angeles mirror site might both be connected to the same national Internet service provider's network. If that is the case, then difficulty in accessing one of the sites might also affect another.
• the mirror sites might not be optimally placed to reduce load on each server. Although an "educated guess" might be made as to where a mirror site should be located, actual usage patterns might differ. Furthermore, there is no guarantee of enhanced performance. The bandwidth of the mirror site might be lower than that of the original site, or it might be overloaded for other reasons.
• Video compression is a process by which redundant data is eliminated from the video data stream so that the overall size of the data stream is reduced.
• compression formats which are used to reduce video data streams, i.e., MPEG, JPEG, H261, Indeo, Cinepak, AVI, Quicktime, TrueMotion and Wavelet.
• Video player codec located at a user's multimedia terminal, usually as a plug- in to the browser.
• a codec can only recognize and decompress a single compression format.
• the service begins to make video clips available over the Internet, it is more likely that the video clips will be requested by a non-subscribing user whose multimedia terminal does not have a codec that recognizes the compression format in which the video clips are stored. If this is the case, the user's video request must be redirected to a video clip stored in a compression format recognized by the user' s codec or the user must acquire or download a codec program which is capable of decompressing the desired video clip. In many cases, the video request cannot be redirected to a video clip with a recognizable format because video clips are not stored in a variety of compression formats due to their large size and the limited storage capacity of the server. In this situation, downloading a new codec is the only alternative.
• a codec program is usually accessible via a link embedded in the web page referencing the requested video.
• the web page usually prompts the user to acquire the codec necessary to decompress the format of the requested video.
• the user is forced to jump to a different web page, find the codec, download and install the codec and then try to relocate the web page with the link to the originally requested video file.
• the process must be repeated.
• a user terminal may ultimately store a number of different codecs in memory.
• a system and method whereby a primary software program encoded on computer readable medium can be accessed via a link embedded on a web page referencing a video clip.
• the user can download the primary program to the user' s terminal and use its functionality to: (a) download and launch a software tool which conducts network tests for locating servers that are "electronically close" to the user so that audio or video data and multimedia software can be delivered to the user via a high performance network connection; (b) download multimedia software from distributed servers on the Internet and install the software to a user's terminal; (c) analyze and update multimedia software at the user terminal including the primary program and the network testing software tool ; and (d) direct the user to audio/video data, multimedia software and software updates distributed on servers throughout the Internet.
• a script component of the primary program embedded in the web page query' s the user' s browser and system components to detect for the presence of the network testing software tool. If the tool is not detected, the user will be queried by the page to download the primary program for the purpose of optimizing the user's video delivery system components. If the user elects to download the primary program, the program can be downloaded as a plug-in to the browser or as a stand-alone program.
• the primary program After downloading, the primary program will initially install and launch the network testing software tool which will be used to locate servers that are "electronically close" to the user terminal.
• the primary program will download a "delivery site file" from a multimedia database manager maintained by the service provider to the network testing tool.
• the delivery site file will contain a list of server sites that store multimedia software and upgrades that will be used by the primary program to upgrade the user's multimedia system components.
• the primary program will activate the network testing tool and the tool will conduct a series of network performance tests to determine from the list of servers storing the data required by the primary program, which server can deliver the necessary data over the least congested network path to the user's terminal.
• the primary program will also comprise a multimedia software upgrade file (MSU) which is downloaded from the multimedia database manager of the service provider.
• MSU multimedia software upgrade file
• the MSU file contains a list of multimedia software and upgrades located on the Internet and a list of servers from which the data can be obtained.
• the primary program After installation of the network testing tool is complete, the primary program will analyze the user' s system resources to determine what multimedia software is stored by the system. The primary program can compare the list of the user' s multimedia software with the list of software upgrades contained in the primary program's MSU files. Based on this comparison, the primary program can advise the user as to the availability of upgrades which can be used to enhance multimedia software pre-existing on the user' s terminal and also the availability of new multimedia software that is not present on the user's system. The user then has the option to upgrade her existing multimedia software or download new multimedia software. If the user requests new software or software upgrades, the primary program will use the network testing tool to determine the best server site to retrieve the data from. Once the primary program receives the data, the primary program will install the software or software upgrades on the user's terminal.
• the primary program can determine what aspects of the upgrades or software programs are required for functionality and selectively install only those attributes thus conserving storage space. In some cases, the primary program may uninstall old software and install a new version of the software rather than an upgrade if doing so facilitates the download and installation of multimedia software in a way that is transparent to the user. In cases where the primary program must close and reopen the browser to permit the installation of software, the primary program will reopen the browser and bring the user back to the web page containing the original video request.
• the primary program will provide a link to a "most recent release" video directory maintained by the multimedia database manager.
• the video directory will provide links to video data stored anywhere on the Internet.
• Each video reference in the directory will indicate the types of software, i.e., player codecs necessary to view that video. By referencing the list, the user can determine what type of multimedia software to store on his system.
• the multimedia database manager will download a video delivery site file to the network testing tool.
• the delivery site file will contain a list of servers that store the requested video and a list of network performance tests to run.
• the network testing tool will then conduct the network performance tests and determine which server can deliver the video over the least congested route.
• the video is then downloaded to the user's terminal and viewed on the updated player software.
• the multimedia database manager maintains an updated list of all multimedia software upgrades and video available on the Internet.
• the primary program will download the updated list from the multimedia database manager, compare the list to the system components previously installed and advise the user of any upgrades that could be installed.
• the primary program will direct the user to the updated video directory maintained by the multimedia database manager so the user can select a video. In this way, the user is assured of receiving the best and most enriched video in the fastest most efficient way possible.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=21947133

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (6)

Families Citing this family (15)

Family Cites Families (2)

• 1998
  • 1998-05-19 CN CN98806335.2A patent/CN1260889A/zh active Pending
  • 1998-05-19 JP JP55071298A patent/JP2002502523A/ja active Pending
  • 1998-05-19 CA CA002290431A patent/CA2290431A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1998-05-19 WO PCT/US1998/010567 patent/WO1998053411A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1998-05-19 EP EP98923709A patent/EP0983559A1/en not_active Withdrawn
  • 1998-05-19 AU AU75937/98A patent/AU7593798A/en not_active Abandoned

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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