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
  • H04L67/2866—Architectures; Arrangements
  • H04L67/30—Profiles
• • 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
  • H04L65/60—Network streaming of media packets
  • H04L65/61—Network streaming of media packets for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
  • H04L65/612—Network streaming of media packets for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio for unicast
• • 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
  • H04L67/2866—Architectures; Arrangements
  • H04L67/30—Profiles
  • H04L67/303—Terminal profiles
• • 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
  • H04L67/50—Network services
  • H04L67/56—Provisioning of proxy services
  • H04L67/565—Conversion or adaptation of application format or content
  • H04L67/5651—Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• • 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
  • H04L69/24—Negotiation of communication capabilities
• • 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]
• • 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
  • H04L65/1066—Session management
  • H04L65/1101—Session protocols

Definitions

• the field of the invention is that of the presentation of multimedia contents to a communication terminal. More specifically, the invention relates to the presentation of a list, or a catalog, of multimedia content transmitted by a server to a communication terminal, allowing a user to select one of several multimedia content.
• the vast majority of communication terminals for example radio telephones or personal assistants (PDAs) have technical characteristics for viewing multimedia content. However, these characteristics can vary substantially from one terminal to another.
• the content in turn, vary greatly, both in terms of size and size, and require means of restitution very different from each other.
• the communication network is not able to deliver the content selected by the user.
• the video is not downloaded.
• Another disadvantage of this technique of the prior art is that it does not ensure that the user can effectively view the selected multimedia content. Indeed, if the user does not have, or at least little information about the capabilities of the terminal or the types of multimedia content presented in the catalog, the techniques do not ensure that the content selected by the user will be correctly restored on the terminal of the latter. The user will attempt to download content that he can not, in any case, not return on his device.
• the invention particularly aims to overcome these disadvantages of the prior art.
• an object of the invention is to provide a multimedia catalog presentation technique making it possible to simplify the choice of users and not to require from them technical knowledge of the characteristics of their terminal.
• Another objective of the invention is to propose such a technique which eliminates or minimizes the risk of attempts to download content that can not be played on the terminal as a function of these characteristics and of the state of a transmission channel at a given time. given moment.
• the invention also aims to propose such a technique that does not require intervention or special knowledge on the part of the user.
• the invention aims to provide such a technique, which makes it possible to ensure the correct reproduction of the contents of a multimedia catalog presented to a user on his terminal.
• such a method comprises a step of adapting said catalog as a function of at least a first piece of information representative of a current transmission channel and / or of an available useful bit rate, so as to present said terminal multimedia content that can be transmitted to said terminal at a given time.
• the invention is based on a novel and inventive approach to the provision of multimedia content for a communication terminal user, implementing a first piece of information representative of a current transmission channel and / or an available payload.
• the invention proposes a dynamic approach to the catalog of multimedia contents by using this first piece of information.
• the contents actually accessible at a given moment are proposed to the user.
• the catalog may be different, even if the terminal remains the same.
• This first information advantageously comprises an indication of the type of communication standard available for said terminal at said given instant, for example GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, xDSL, ISDN, PSTN, etc. It makes it possible to refine the contents of the catalog to the multimedia contents that can be restored according to the state of the transmission channel.
• the adaptation of the catalog also takes account of at least one second piece of information representative of the characteristics of said terminal, so as to present to said terminal only multimedia contents that can be restored by said terminal.
• This second information may include at least one of the indications belonging to the group comprising: - a screen format;
• This second information makes it possible to refine the presentation of said catalog of multimedia contents to the contents that can be restored by said terminal according to the specific technical characteristics of the terminal.
• said server manages a first database associating the one or more second information with each type of terminal.
• This first database makes it possible to enrich the request sent by a terminal before it is taken into account for constituting the catalog.
• the adaptation of the catalog also takes account of at least a third piece of information representative of a subscription and / or a preference of the user of said terminal, in order to adapt even more finely the contents of the catalog to terminal, and to take into account the characteristics of the user, by selecting only the contents relating to his subscription and / or his usual preferences. It is thus possible to offer the user or not content that is paid for and / or reserved for certain users, for example as a function of access rights that he has fulfilled and / or parental control features. It is also possible to offer the user content adapted to his tastes.
• this third piece of information is stored in a second database of users, addressable from an identifier of said user, from the server interacting with the user's terminal.
• This second database can also associate each user with a list of at least one application installed in said terminal.
• This list can also be used to define an alternative strategy of fallback in the very unlikely case or none of the first and second information would be available at the time of the request.
• This fallback strategy may for example consist of assigning a minimum default profile, rather than displaying a deceptive error message.
• the request sent by said terminal to the server is a request in the format http, comprising a header.
• This header is used to insert said first, second and / or third information, in order to provide said server with all the parameters enabling it to process the user's request.
• the invention also relates to the structure of such a request, comprising at least one field carrying said first information.
• the invention also relates to the terminals able to implement the method described above and to issue such a request (request signal), and the corresponding servers.
• the invention finally relates to computer programs comprising instructions for implementing all or part of this method, in the terminals, the servers and the intermediate elements of the transmission channel.
• FIG. 1 presents a block diagram, according to the invention, of the processing of a request sent by the communication terminal in order to access the multimedia content of a catalog
• FIG. 2 illustrates the format of this request sent by the terminal of FIG. 1, when it is distributed to the server responsible for processing it
• FIG. 3 describes an embodiment of a presentation of an optimized multimedia content catalog, following a request issued by the terminal
• Figure 4 schematically illustrates the structure of the terminal of Figure 1
• Figure 5 schematically illustrates the structure of the server of Figure 1.
• the general principle of the invention is therefore based on the taking into account of information representative of the transmission channel in order to optimize the catalogs presented on a radiocommunication terminal. It also takes into account information on the type of terminal of the user.
• FIG. 1 is a simplified illustration of an exemplary architecture implementing an embodiment of the invention.
• the radiocommunication terminal 11 sends a request 12 to a multimedia content server 13 (composed, for example, of an http protocol management server 131 and an application server 132) through a server. transmission channel.
• a multimedia content server 13 composed, for example, of an http protocol management server 131 and an application server 132
• the structure of the terminal 11 is illustrated schematically in FIG. 4. It comprises an M 41 memory, and a processing unit 40 equipped with a ⁇ P microprocessor, which is controlled by a computer program (or application).
• the processing unit 40 receives as input, via a network input interface module E 43, server responses 44, which the microprocessor ⁇ P processes, according to the instructions of the program Pg 42, to generate requests 46 , which are transmitted via an S 45 network output interface module.
• the request 12 sent by the terminal 11 contains in particular information identifying the type of the terminal. This information is inserted by the terminal 11 during the transmission of the request 12.
• a dedicated equipment of this transmission channel 10 adds in the request 12 information representative of its state, for example by encapsulation in the header of the request. This information can also be encapsulated in the request 12 directly by the terminal 11, prior to its transmission.
• Such information may be an indication of the available bit rate on the transmission channel, depending on its size, and / or an indication of the type of radiocommunication standard accessible to the terminal (GSM, GPRS,
• the structure of the server 13 is illustrated schematically in FIG. 5. It comprises a memory M 51, and a processing unit 50 equipped with a microprocessor ⁇ P, which is controlled by a computer program (or application) Pg 52.
• processing unit 50 receives, via an input network interface module E 53, client requests 54, which the microprocessor ⁇ P processes, according to the instructions of program Pg 52, to generate responses 56, which are transmitted via an S 55 network output interface module.
• the server 13 therefore uses the information that it has in the header of the request 12 to contact a database of the terminals 14 and / or a database of the subscribers 15 in order to obtain precise information on the terminal.
• the user (request 141 and answer 142) on the one hand and on the subscription and / or the user's preferences on the other hand (request 151 and answer 152).
• the subscriber database 15 which can also be managed directly by the content server 13 or by a device with which it communicates, groups for example for each user radio services managed by the server 13, characteristics of the user's subscription, such as a maximum size of data that can be exchanged during a given subscription period, the type of subscription, or the type of software installed on the device. Access to one and / or the other of these two databases, from the data available in the initial request of the terminal 12 allows the server 13 to define a new request 16 which is issued on the database 17. This new request is an optimized request which is also constructed from the information added in the request 12 by the transmission channel 14, or by the terminal 11.
• the database of the catalogs 17 then sends a response 18 to the server 13.
• This response 18 contains a list of multimedia contents accessible to the terminal 11 according to the technical characteristics of the latter, the state of the channel 14, and possibly the subscription subscribed by the user.
• the latter then builds the page that will be presented to the terminal and returns it to the latter through the response 19 made to the initial request 12.
• a particular example of implementation of the process of FIG. 1 can be obtained from the following technical base, which comprises:
• a multimedia content server 13 comprising: an HTTP protocol management server (web server) 131 which may be, for example, type IIS, Apache, Netscape, SUN iPlanet (registered trademarks). It is it that receives the request 12 and builds the answer (the adapted catalog) 19. This answer is constituted, for example, pages of the video portal built dynamically, presenting the access to the video contents html ("Hypertext markup language") and wml ("wireless markup language”), as well as the best links (URLs ("Uniform Resource Locator”)) streaming, or download. They are also built dynamically.
• the request 19 is intended for the user of the radiocommunication terminal 11.
• the server 131 provides the application server 132 with all the parameters necessary for the system dynamics extracted from the http header.
• An application server 132 It can advantageously be based on:
• Java language can be implemented in the form of independent modules (“servlet”) or in the form of a dynamic JSP content generator ("Java Server Page”), for example IBM WebSphere, BEA Web Logic, Netscape Enterprise Server, Oracle Application Server, SUN
• ASP / COM type language ASP .NET, Microsoft Transaction Server (registered trademarks)
• a Web Services implementation or A PHP type language.
• Application Server implements the following features:
• the technical means implemented also include three databases:
• terminals which contains the multimedia characteristics of the targeted terminals, for example the power of its processor, the size of its screen or its decoding capabilities or the size of its memory, especially for downloading.
• databases can for example be based on tools such as MS SQL Server, MS Access, Oracle 8i, IBM DB2, Oracle, MySQL (registered trademarks).
• the request 12 is transmitted by the radiocommunication terminal. It can be completed by the terminal itself or progressively by one or more intermediate network equipment.
• An example of a completed request structure is illustrated in FIG. 2.
• URL link
• a third field 23 named “accept”, which makes it possible to recover the MIME types ("Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions") supported by the terminal, and consequently the onboard multimedia reader (s).
• a fifth field 25 making it possible to exploit the characteristics specific to the user of the radiocommunication terminal, for example the terminal subscription offer.
• This request signal structure is very simple, and relies on known databases (http). It does not require any complex means, neither on the terminal side nor on the server side and the intermediate elements of the transmission channel.
• FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the method for presenting a dynamic audiovisual file, following a request sent by the terminal.
• the principle of the embodiment of this system is as follows:
• the user through the browser 31 on board his radiocommunication terminal sends an HTTP request 311 which invokes a generic audiovisual file on a video portal, intended to broadcast content mode streaming or download.
• the system 32 using the management server of the HTTP protocol 321, retrieves the fields of the request concerning the terminal of the user: User Agent (UA) 21, link (URL) of the "User Agent Profile” (UAProf ) 22, "Accept” 23, and transmits 3211 to the application server 322. It also retrieves the generic video link selected by the user 3211.
• the application server :
• the application server 322 requests the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 to construct a response indicating that it is not possible to read the file selected by the user (3212) .
• the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 transmits this response to the radiocommunication terminal 31 which displays it (312). If the answer to the previous check 3221 does not make it possible to determine the capabilities of the terminal, the application server 322 tries to check if the terminal is compatible with streaming using the "User Agent" field. 21 by querying (3222) the database "terminals".
• the application server 322 asks the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 to construct a response indicating that it is not possible to read the file selected by the user (3212).
• the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 transmits this response to the radiocommunication terminal 31 which displays it (312).
• the application server tries to verify that the terminal is compatible with streaming ("streaming"). ") Using the user's ID by querying the" user preferences "database 3224. In this database the user will have informed, during a previous session, the streaming technology that he wants to use.
• the application server 322 requests the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 to construct a response indicating that it is not possible to read the file selected by the user 3212.
• the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 transmits this response to the radiocommunication terminal 31 which displays it 312.
• the application server If, using one of the preceding steps, the application server has succeeded in identifying the capabilities of the terminal, said application server then queries the content database 3226 to verify that the multimedia file chosen by the user is available in the correct format:
• the application server 322 requests the HTTP 321 management server to construct a response indicating that the requested file is not available to the terminal. 3213.
• the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 transmits this response to the radiocommunication terminal 31 which displays it (313).
• the application server 322 builds the optimum link (URL) 3228 and requests the management server of the HTTP protocol 321 to construct a response 3214 enabling the terminal 31 of the radiocommunication of the user 31.
• URL optimum link
• the terminal invokes, through the http request, a list or a page of said catalog.
• the server then builds this page or this list using information representative of the channel and / or the terminal in order to present to the terminal only the multimedia content that can be restored by the terminal.
• the invention is not limited to radiotelephone type terminals, but can be applied more generally to many types of terminals, such as PDAs, microcomputers, etc.

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

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• 2006
  • 2006-05-12 EP EP06763140A patent/EP1891552A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2006-05-12 WO PCT/EP2006/062287 patent/WO2006134008A1/fr active Application Filing
  • 2006-05-12 US US11/917,704 patent/US20090150512A1/en not_active Abandoned

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