KR102346748B1 - System for cloud streaming service, method of image cloud streaming service using selective server connection and apparatus for the same - Google Patents

Abstract

A cloud streaming service system, an image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection, and an apparatus therefor are disclosed. The network performance of at least one terminal for connecting a session to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers is determined, and the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers is sent to the cloud streaming server corresponding to the network performance. At least one terminal may be connected. By providing a connection to an appropriate cloud streaming server according to the terminal, it is possible to provide a service more quickly according to the environment of the terminal.

Description

Cloud streaming service system, image cloud streaming service method using selective server connection, and device therefor

The present invention provides a cloud streaming service system capable of saving processing time and cost by providing a low-quality image stored in a cache to a terminal with low network performance during an image cloud streaming service, an image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection, and the same It is about a device for

The rapid development of the Internet has resulted in a rapid increase in individual communication speed, and this communication speed improvement is like downloading or uploading large amounts of data by accessing a computer located at a remote location, or using a remote computer control program as if it were a remote computer. It provides an environment where you can use a remote computer as if you were logged in locally.

In addition, as applications driven in a mobile communication terminal such as a smart phone are developed in various ways, virtualization technologies for driving applications requiring high performance in a user terminal with relatively low performance have been widely proposed.

Among them, based on screen virtualization, the application is run on the server, the driving screen is compressed through video encoding and transmitted to the client, and the client plays the transmitted video to have the same effect as if the application is running on its own terminal. of cloud streaming services are in the spotlight.

The cloud streaming service basically applied the video codec-based cloud streaming technique. However, even when a static screen such as a menu display is provided, the entire screen is unnecessarily captured and the video codec is used to operate, which is inefficient as a whole system.

In addition, when providing a service to a terminal with low network performance in the case of a cloud streaming service using a cache, even if high-quality data is obtained through the cache, inefficient processing of lowering the image quality of the data is performed to provide it to the terminal again. can

Therefore, an image-based cloud streaming service technology that can capture only the static image of the application execution screen and provide it to the user's terminal, but provide the service through a cache corresponding to the terminal's performance is urgently needed do.

Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0410973, registered on December 01, 2003 (Title: Streaming method of video in video-on-demand system)

An object of the present invention is to provide a smoother service by reducing the amount of cache provided for each cloud streaming server.

In addition, it is an object of the present invention to operate the server more efficiently by saving resources for processing the image corresponding to the performance of the terminal in the cloud streaming server.

In addition, an object of the present invention is to provide a service more quickly according to the environment of the terminal by providing a connection to an appropriate cloud streaming server according to the connected terminal.

In addition, an object of the present invention is to provide a high-spec application execution screen even in a low-spec terminal by processing only the changed image on the application execution screen and providing it to the user terminal.

Cloud streaming router according to the present invention for achieving the above object, a network performance determination unit for determining the network performance of at least one terminal for connecting a session to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers; and a connection unit for connecting the at least one terminal to a cloud streaming server whose cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance.

At this time, the network performance determining unit considers at least one of a bandwidth size and read/write performance of the network, and sets the network performance among a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level. Either one can be judged.

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level.

At this time, the plurality of cloud streaming servers are the first cloud streaming server and the cache image quality level corresponding to the first level of the cache image quality level to any one of the second cloud streaming server corresponding to the second level can correspond.

At this time, the connection unit connects the at least one terminal to the first cloud streaming server when the at least one terminal corresponds to the first level, and when the at least one terminal corresponds to the second level to the at least one terminal may be connected to the second cloud streaming server.

In this case, the first cloud streaming server may transmit the image stored in the cache to the at least one terminal by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level.

In this case, the second level may correspond to any one of the paletted PNG and the degraded JPEG.

In this case, the network performance determination unit determines that the network performance is at the first level when the at least one terminal corresponds to a personal computer (PC) connected through the Internet, and the at least one terminal is connected to the cable When it corresponds to a low-performance set-top box connected through a cable modem network, it may be determined that the network performance is the second level.

In addition, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to the present invention, determining the network performance of at least one terminal for session connection to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers; and connecting the at least one terminal to a cloud streaming server whose cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance.

In this case, the determining may include setting the network performance in consideration of at least one of a bandwidth size and network read/write performance among a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level. Either one can be judged.

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level.

At this time, the plurality of cloud streaming servers are the first cloud streaming server and the cache image quality level corresponding to the first level of the cache image quality level to any one of the second cloud streaming server corresponding to the second level can correspond.

At this time, the connecting step connects the at least one terminal to the first cloud streaming server when the at least one terminal corresponds to the first level, and the at least one terminal corresponds to the second level In this case, the at least one terminal may be connected to the second cloud streaming server.

In this case, the first cloud streaming server may transmit the image stored in the cache to the at least one terminal by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level.

In this case, the second level may correspond to any one of the paletted PNG and the degraded JPEG.

At this time, in the determining step, if the at least one terminal corresponds to a personal computer (PC) connected through the Internet, it is determined that the network performance is at the first level, and the at least one terminal is connected to the cable When it corresponds to a low-performance set-top box connected through a cable modem network, it may be determined that the network performance is the second level.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a smoother service by reducing the storage amount of the cache provided for each cloud streaming server.

In addition, the present invention can operate the server more efficiently by saving resources for processing the image corresponding to the performance of the terminal in the cloud streaming server.

In addition, the present invention can provide a service more quickly according to the environment of the terminal by providing a connection to an appropriate cloud streaming server according to the connected terminal.

In addition, the present invention can provide a high-spec application execution screen even in a low-spec terminal by processing only the changed image on the application execution screen and providing it to the user terminal.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of the cloud streaming router shown in FIG. 1 .
3 is a block diagram showing in detail a cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a diagram illustrating a method for reducing image quality according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a diagram illustrating an image capturing process according to an embodiment of the present invention.
6 is an operation flowchart illustrating an image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a diagram illustrating a process of connecting a session to a first cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention.
8 is a diagram illustrating a process of connecting a session to a second cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, detailed descriptions of well-known functions or configurations that may obscure the gist of the present invention in the following description and accompanying drawings will be omitted. Also, it should be noted that, throughout the drawings, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals as much as possible. The embodiments of the present invention are provided in order to more completely explain the present invention to those of ordinary skill in the art. Accordingly, the shapes and sizes of elements in the drawings may be exaggerated for clearer description.

The terms or words used in the present specification and claims described below should not be construed as being limited to their ordinary or dictionary meanings, and the inventor is appropriate as a concept of terms for describing his invention in the best way. It should be interpreted as meaning and concept consistent with the technical idea of the present invention based on the principle that it can be defined in Therefore, the embodiments described in this specification and the configurations shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiment of the present invention, and do not represent all the technical spirit of the present invention, so at the time of the present application, various It should be understood that there may be equivalents and variations. In addition, terms such as 1st, 2nd, etc. are used to describe various components, and are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from other components, and are not used to limit the components.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1, the cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention is a cloud streaming router 110, cloud streaming server (120-1 ~ 120-N), terminals (130-1 ~ 130-N) and network 140 .

Cloud streaming router 110 determines the network performance of at least one terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) for connecting a session to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers (120-1 ~ 120-N).

In this case, in consideration of at least one of the bandwidth size and the read/write performance of the network, the network performance may be determined as any one of a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level. .

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level.

At this time, a plurality of cloud streaming servers (120-1 ~ 120-N) are the first cloud streaming server and the cache image quality level corresponding to the first level of the cache image quality level is the second cloud streaming corresponding to the second level It may correspond to any one of the servers.

At this time, the first cloud streaming server may transmit the image stored in the cache to the at least one terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level.

In this case, the second level may correspond to any one of the paletted PNG and the degraded JPEG.

At this time, when the at least one terminal 130-1 to 130-N corresponds to a personal computer (PC) connected through the Internet, it is determined that the network performance is at the first level, and the at least one terminal ( When 130-1 to 130-N) correspond to a low-performance set-top box connected through a cable modem network, it may be determined that the network performance is the second level.

In addition, the cloud streaming router 110 is a plurality of cloud streaming servers (120-1 ~ 120-N) of the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache of the cloud streaming server (120-1 ~ 120-N) corresponding to the network performance At least one terminal 130-1 to 130-N is connected to N).

At this time, when the at least one terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) corresponds to the first level, at least one terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) is connected to the first cloud streaming server, at least one When the terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) of the second level corresponds to at least one terminal (130-1 ~ 130-N) can be connected to the second cloud streaming server.

The cloud streaming servers 120-1 to 120-N provide an image-based cloud streaming service to the session-connected terminals 130-1 to 130-N.

In this case, an image corresponding to the application execution screen may be obtained by using the image stored in the cache.

In this case, the image may be encoded as a still image according to the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache and transmitted to the terminals 130-1 to 130-N.

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level.

At this time, the cloud streaming server (120-1 ~ 120-N) may include at least one of a cache image quality level of the cache corresponding to the first level and a cache of the cache image quality level corresponding to the second level.

In this case, the cloud streaming servers 120-1 to 120-N may provide an image-based cloud streaming service through a pipeline process corresponding to rendering, capture, encoding and sending of still images.

The terminals 130-1 to 130-N receive the application execution screen corresponding to the cloud streaming service from the cloud streaming server 110 and provide it to the user.

In addition, each of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N is a device that is connected to a communication network to execute an application based on a cloud computing system, and is not limited to a mobile communication terminal, and includes all information and communication devices, multimedia terminals, wired terminals, It may be various terminals such as a fixed terminal and an IP (Internet Protocol) terminal. In addition, the terminals 130-1 to 130-N are each a mobile phone, a PMP (Portable Multimedia Played), a MID (Mobile Internet Device), a smart phone, a desktop, a tablet computer, and a notebook computer, respectively. It may be a mobile terminal having various mobile communication specifications such as a note book, a net book, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smart TV, and an information communication device.

In addition, the terminals 130-1 to 130-N receive various information such as number and character information, set various functions, and receive signals input in relation to the function control of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N. It can be transmitted to the control unit through the input unit. In addition, the input unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may be configured to include at least one of a keypad and a touchpad that generate an input signal according to a user's touch or manipulation. At this time, the input unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N is configured in the form of a single touch panel (or touch screen) together with the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N, so that the input and The display function can be performed at the same time. In addition, as the input unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N, all types of input means that may be developed in the future may be used in addition to input devices such as a keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, and a joystick. In particular, the input unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N according to the present invention may transmit an input signal for uploading or downloading content based on cloud computing to the control unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N.

In addition, the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may display information about a series of operation states and operation results that occur while the functions of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N are performed. Also, the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may display menus of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N and user data input by the user. Here, the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N includes a liquid crystal display (LCD), an ultra-thin liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD, Thin Film Transistor LCD), and a light emitting diode (LED, Light Emitting Diode). , organic light emitting diode (OLED, Organic LED), active organic light emitting diode (AMOLED, Active Matrix OLED), retina display (Retina Display), flexible display (Flexible display) and three-dimensional (3 Dimension) display, etc. have. At this time, when the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N is configured in the form of a touch screen, the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N functions as an input unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N. You can do some or all of them. In particular, the display unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N according to the present invention may display information related to the execution of content provided based on cloud computing on a screen.

In addition, the storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N is a device for storing data, and includes a main memory and an auxiliary memory, and is an application necessary for the functional operation of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N. program can be saved. The storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may largely include a program area and a data area. Here, when each function is activated in response to a user's request, the terminals 130-1 to 130-N execute corresponding application programs under the control of the controller to provide each function. In particular, the storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N according to the present invention can store an operating system for booting the terminals 130-1 to 130-N, a program for uploading or downloading content based on cloud computing, etc. have. In addition, the storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may store a content DB for storing a plurality of contents and information of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N. In this case, the content DB includes execution data for executing the content and attribute information on the content, and content usage information according to the content execution may be stored. And, the information of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may include terminal specification information.

In addition, the communication unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may perform a function for transmitting and receiving data through the cloud streaming server 110 and the network 130 . Here, the communication unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may include an RF transmitting means for up-converting and amplifying the frequency of the transmitted signal, and an RF receiving means for low-noise amplifying a received signal and down-converting the frequency. . The communication unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may include at least one of a wireless communication module and a wired communication module. In addition, the wireless communication module is a configuration for transmitting and receiving data according to a wireless communication method, and when the terminals 130-1 to 130-N use wireless communication, a wireless network communication module, a wireless LAN communication module, and a wireless fan communication module Using any one of the data can be transmitted and received to the cloud streaming server (110). In addition, the wired communication module is for transmitting and receiving data by wire. The wired communication module may connect to the network 130 through a wire and transmit/receive data to/from the cloud streaming server 110 . That is, the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may connect to the network 130 using a wireless communication module or a wired communication module, and may transmit/receive data to and from the cloud streaming server 110 through the network 130 . In particular, the network 130 according to the present invention may communicate with the cloud streaming server 110 or other terminals 130-1 to 130-N to transmit and receive data required to upload or download content based on cloud computing.

In addition, the control unit of the terminal devices 130-1 to 130-N may be a process device for driving an operating system (OS, Operation System) and each configuration. For example, the control unit is a cloud streaming server 110 . When accessing the cloud streaming server 110 through a separate service application, it is possible to control the overall process of executing the service application according to the user's request, and simultaneously with the execution of the cloud It is possible to control so that a service use request is transmitted to the streaming server 110, and at this time, it is possible to control so that information of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N required for user authentication is transmitted together.

Also, the controller of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N may execute specific content stored in the storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N according to a user's request. In this case, the controller may store the content use history according to the content execution as content use information.

In addition, the control unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N performs cloud streaming together with execution data for executing the content, content information including attribute information about the content, and content use information that is information according to the content use history. It can be uploaded by sending it to the server 110 . Thereafter, the control unit can delete the uploaded content transmitted to the cloud streaming server 110 from the storage unit of the terminals 130-1 to 130-N according to the user's request, and access the cloud streaming server 110 to Content may be executed and used through the cloud streaming server 110 .

In addition, the control unit of the terminals (130-1 ~ 130-N) may be controlled to be stored in the storage after accessing the cloud streaming server 110 to download the content from the other terminals (130-1 ~ 130-N), , when executing content through the cloud streaming server 110, it is also possible to control so that the content is executed after receiving only the data necessary for execution.

The network 140 provides a path for transferring data between the cloud streaming router 110 and the terminals 130-1 to 130-N, and is a concept that encompasses both existing networks and networks that can be developed in the future. . For example, the network 140 is a wired/wireless local area network that provides communication of various information devices within a limited area, a mobile communication network that provides communication between mobile devices and between the mobile body and the outside of the mobile body, and communication between the earth station and the earth station using satellites. It may be a satellite communication network that provides Meanwhile, the transmission method standard of the network 140 is not limited to the existing transmission method standard, and may include all transmission method standards to be developed in the future. In addition, the network used between the cloud streaming router 110 and the terminals 130-1 to 130-N in FIG. 1 may be different from the network used between the terminals 130-1 to 130-N, It may be the same.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of the cloud streaming router shown in FIG. 1 .

Referring to FIG. 2 , the cloud streaming router 110 shown in FIG. 1 includes a communication unit 210 , a network performance determination unit 220 , a connection unit 230 , and a storage unit 240 .

The communication unit 210 serves to transmit and receive information related to a plurality of terminals through a communication network such as the network shown in FIG. 1 . In particular, the communication unit 210 according to an embodiment of the present invention may receive the performance information of the terminal together with a request for a cloud streaming service from the terminal. For example, information such as a device type or model name of a terminal requesting a session connection, a network type and network speed used by the terminal, and the like may be provided. Such terminal performance or network performance information of the terminal may be freely changeable according to the administrator setting of the cloud streaming service system.

At this time, it is possible to receive the application execution result from the cloud streaming server for the cloud streaming service requested by the terminal.

In addition, the execution result of the application corresponding to the cloud streaming service requested by the terminal may be provided to the terminal. For example, an application execution screen corresponding to a service requested by the terminal may be received from a cloud streaming server that is session-connected with the terminal and transmitted to the terminal. In addition, if the cloud streaming server and the terminal are already in a session-connected state through the cloud streaming router 110, then data can be transmitted and received directly through the communication network between the cloud streaming server and the terminal without going through the cloud streaming router 110.

The network performance determination unit 220 determines the network performance of at least one terminal for session connection to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers. For example, information on a network being used by the terminal or performance information of the network may be received together with a message for requesting a session connection from the terminal, and the determination may be made. As such, by using the information related to the network of the terminal, a server capable of providing an appropriate service to the terminal among a plurality of cloud streaming servers may be searched for and connected to the terminal.

In this case, in consideration of at least one of the bandwidth size and the read/write performance of the network, the network performance may be determined as any one of a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level. .

Bandwidth can be said to be a value indicating how much transmission capacity a channel for transmitting data through a network has. For example, if the road is wide, many cars can run at once. If the bandwidth is large, it can be determined that the transmission capacity of the channel is large because there is a lot of data that can be transmitted at once. That is, if the bandwidth is large, the capacity of data that can be transmitted at one time may be large.

Therefore, since the plurality of cloud streaming servers according to the present invention transmit large-capacity data centered on picture files to the terminal, the performance of the network can be determined in consideration of at least one of the network bandwidth or the performance of the network reading or writing data. can

At this time, the preset reference performance for determining the first level may correspond to a degree of being able to receive an image corresponding to the application execution screen provided from the cloud streaming server without a problem. For example, when the cloud streaming server encodes an image corresponding to the application execution screen as a still image and transmits it to the terminal, the network level enough to receive the image without causing a delay on the terminal side is set as the preset reference performance. can be set.

Accordingly, the second level, which is lower in performance than the first level corresponding to the preset reference performance, may correspond to a level in which a delay occurs when processing an image having a quality corresponding to an application execution screen.

At this time, the preset reference performance that can be the reference of the first level and the second level may be set according to the image quality of the application execution screen provided by the cloud streaming server, or freely set by the administrator of the cloud streaming service system and may be changed.

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level. In other words, the cache image quality level may correspond to the image quality level of the images stored in the cache provided in the cloud streaming server.

A plurality of cloud streaming servers according to an embodiment of the present invention may store only an image corresponding to any one of the first level and the second level in the cache. That is, only an image corresponding to the original quality may be stored or only a degraded image may be stored, which may be to connect the session by matching the image quality information stored in the cache with the network performance of the terminal.

In addition, according to various embodiments, there may be cases each having a cache for storing an image corresponding to the first level and an image corresponding to the second level in one cloud streaming server.

At this time, the plurality of cloud streaming servers may correspond to any one of a first cloud streaming server and a cache image quality level corresponding to a second level of the cache image quality level corresponding to the first level of the second cloud streaming server. . That is, by classifying the cloud streaming server into two types according to the quality of the image stored in the cache, the cloud streaming router can easily search for a cloud streaming server to connect with the terminal according to the network performance of the terminal. For example, a server identifier capable of distinguishing whether the first cloud streaming server or the second cloud streaming server is assigned to each of the plurality of cloud streaming servers, and the type of server can be easily distinguished using the server identifier. In addition, even if it is not a method using a server identifier, it is possible to provide a faster session connection to the terminal by displaying the two types of cloud streaming servers to be easily distinguished using various methods.

At this time, the first cloud streaming server may transmit the image stored in the cache to at least one terminal by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level. That is, if the terminal is session-connected to the first cloud streaming server through the cloud streaming router, it may mean that there is no difficulty in receiving the image corresponding to the first level of network performance of the terminal. Accordingly, the image stored in the cache is encoded with a still image so that image quality is not deteriorated and transmitted to the terminal, so that the original image quality service can be provided to the user through the terminal.

In this case, the second level may correspond to any one of the paletted PNG and the degraded JPEG. For example, the second level in which the image quality is deteriorated according to the network performance of the terminal may be generated by reducing the number of colors of the image or lowering the resolution.

In this case, in the case of the paletted PNG, 1 byte of information corresponding to a color index per pixel constituting the image may be included. This may correspond to a quarter of the data size per pixel compared to the PNG32-bit method, which has relatively good image quality. Accordingly, since the data capacity of the entire image is also reduced to a quarter, it may be suitable for an environment with poor network performance.

Also, it is possible to reduce the data size by lowering the image quality of a normal JPEG image by using a method such as lossy compression.

As described above, by using the cache image of the second level in which the image quality is lowered, that is, the data capacity corresponding to the image is reduced, a service can be provided without delay to a terminal having poor network performance. In addition, since the cloud streaming server does not have to re-render the image stored in the cache according to the network performance, resources can be saved accordingly.

In this case, when the at least one terminal corresponds to a personal computer (PC) connected through the Internet, it is determined that the network performance is at the first level, and the at least one terminal is connected through a cable modem network. When it corresponds to a connected set-top box of low performance, it may be determined that the network performance is the second level.

A cable modem may be a device used to access the Internet using a cable TV network. Such a cable modem may be installed at the end of a hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network in which optical cables and coaxial cables are mixed, that is, installed in the house of a subscriber to the cable network and connected to a set-top box. At this time, the set-top box connected through the cable modem refers to the receiving equipment for digital satellite broadcasting, and the name was given from the meaning of the box installed on the TV. If a set-top box is installed, digital television broadcasting can be received even with an analog television, and a set-top box is essential for realizing interactive television or video-on-demand. Such set-top boxes may be of many types depending on the household of the subscriber, and performance differences may occur depending on the type.

Therefore, depending on the type of set-top box, if it is a low-performance set-top box, there may be a delay in processing the image provided in the original quality from the cloud streaming server. service can be provided.

The connection unit 230 connects at least one terminal to a cloud streaming server in which the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance. For example, assuming that there is no problem in receiving high-quality images due to high network performance of the terminal, the terminal may be session-connected to a cloud streaming server having a high cache image quality level. That is, when a high-definition service can be provided due to good network performance of the terminal, a high-definition service can be provided by connecting a cloud streaming server storing a high-definition image in the cache.

However, when a terminal with low network performance is connected to a cloud streaming server that stores a high-definition image in the cache, the cloud streaming server provides a degraded image to the terminal through the process of degrading the high-quality image. can occur This may cause inefficient use of the resources of the cloud streaming server because it cannot provide a high-definition service, and the cloud streaming server must unnecessarily process the image quality degradation process.

Therefore, when the network performance of the terminal is not high, it is possible to provide a faster and more efficient cloud streaming service by connecting the cloud streaming server that stores the image at low quality in the cache accordingly.

At this time, when the at least one terminal corresponds to the first level, at least one terminal is connected to the first cloud streaming server, and at least one terminal corresponds to the second level when the at least one terminal corresponds to the second level You can connect to a cloud streaming server. That is, the terminal corresponding to the first level of network performance is session-connected to the first cloud streaming server capable of providing the cache image of the first level, and the terminal corresponding to the second level of network performance is the second level of cache A session connection with a second cloud streaming server capable of providing an image may be established.

In this case, the first cloud streaming server and the second cloud streaming server may correspond to a cloud streaming server that provides an image-based cloud streaming service. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a service to a terminal through a pipeline process corresponding to rendering, capturing, still image encoding, and sending of an application execution screen.

The video codec-based cloud streaming technique can perform encoding by capturing all frames corresponding to the screen on which the application operates. However, when the frame-to-frame change is not large on the screen on which the application operates, still image encoding is performed by capturing only the area of change of the frame that has changed compared to the previous frame, as in the image-based cloud streaming technique, and displayed on the user's terminal. It is possible to display the parts except the change area in the same way and change only the change area.

In this case, it is possible to detect sections with little change between frames among frames corresponding to the execution screen of the rendered application, and detect a frame for capturing an image in a section with little change between frames. For example, it may be inefficient to provide an image-based cloud streaming service because the number of images to be captured is large in a section where there is a lot of change between frames. Therefore, in such a section with many changes, a service is performed through a video codec-based cloud streaming technique, and an image can be captured from a changed frame in order to perform an image-based cloud streaming service only in a section with little change between frames.

In this case, it is possible to capture an image corresponding to the changed portion compared to the previous frame of the frame. For example, among many frames constituting the application execution screen, the current frame and the previous frame may be compared, and a portion with a difference between the two frames may be determined as a changed portion and captured as an image. Also, when the changed portion is detected as a plurality of regions on the frame, one region including the plurality of regions may be captured as an image, or the plurality of regions may be captured as multiple images, respectively.

In this case, if the image requested from the terminal exists in the cache, the image may be acquired from the cache without capturing the image from the application execution screen. In addition, the image provided to the terminal by capturing and encoding a still image on the application execution screen is stored in the cache, so that when the terminal requests it, it can be quickly provided through the cache.

In this case, the image to be transmitted to the terminal may be compressed by a still image encoding method, and still image encoding may be performed by selecting a method corresponding to an image among several still image encoding methods.

At this time, in the present invention, since the cloud streaming server is selected according to the network performance of the terminal and the session is connected, when the image stored in the cache is encoded as a still image, a still image encoding method can be selected according to the image quality. In addition, when the image requested by the terminal does not exist in the cache and the still image is encoded by capturing the application execution screen, a still image encoding method may be selected according to the performance of the terminal and the network performance of the terminal. For example, in order to improve the speed of a cloud streaming service, the image may be compressed using a palette PNG encoding method that has a high compression rate and a low load. In addition, if you want to provide good image quality regardless of the load, you can compress the image using a PNG32-bit encoding method or a JPEG encoding method.

The storage unit 240 stores various information generated in the process of the cloud streaming service according to the embodiment of the present invention as described above.

According to an embodiment, the storage unit 240 may be configured independently of the cloud streaming router 110 to support a function for a cloud streaming service. In this case, the storage unit 240 may operate as a separate mass storage and may include a control function for performing an operation.

In addition, the cloud streaming router 110 configured as described above may be implemented with one or more devices.

On the other hand, the cloud streaming router 110 is equipped with a memory can store information in the device. In one implementation, the memory is a computer-readable medium. In one implementation, the memory may be a volatile memory unit, and in another implementation, the memory may be a non-volatile memory unit. In one embodiment, the storage device is a computer-readable medium. In various different implementations, the storage device may include, for example, a hard disk device, an optical disk device, or some other mass storage device.

3 is a block diagram showing in detail a cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3, the cloud streaming service system according to an embodiment of the present invention is a cloud streaming router 310, a first cloud streaming server 320, a second cloud streaming server 330 and a PC corresponding to the terminal ( 340) and a Set Top Box (STB) 350 .

At this time, the cache 321 provided in the first cloud streaming server 320 stores an image corresponding to the first level of the cache image quality level, and the cache 331 provided in the second cloud streaming server 330 ) may store an image whose cache image quality level corresponds to the second level.

At this time, the cloud streaming router 310 may receive a session connection request to the cloud streaming server from the PC 340 through the Internet. The cloud streaming router 310 may determine the network performance of the PC 340 . If the cloud streaming router 310 determines that the network performance of the PC 340 is a first level corresponding to more than a preset reference performance, the cloud streaming router 310 sets the PC 340 to the first cloud streaming server ( 320) to connect the session. That is, the PC 340 determines that there is no problem in receiving the image corresponding to the first level stored in the cache 321, and can be connected to receive the service of the quality corresponding to the first level from the first cloud streaming server. .

In addition, the cloud streaming router 310 may receive a session connection request to the cloud streaming server from the STB 350 through the cable modem. The cloud streaming router 310 may determine network performance for the STB 350 . If the cloud streaming router 310 determines that the network performance of the STB 350 is a second level lower than the first level, the cloud streaming router 310 transfers the STB 350 to the second cloud streaming server 330 . session can be connected. That is, the STB 350 may determine that the network performance is low to receive the image stored in the cache 321 of the first cloud streaming server 320 . Accordingly, the STB 350 may connect to the second cloud streaming server to receive the image corresponding to the second level stored in the cache 331 .

4 is a diagram illustrating a method for reducing image quality according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4 , it can be seen that the image 410 corresponding to the application execution screen is displayed in the PNG32bit method 420 and the paletted PNG method 430 , respectively.

First, according to the PNG32-bit method 420 in the image 410, the method of including color information in the pixel 421 is the color corresponding to R (Red), G (Green), and B (Blue) in the pixel 421, respectively. can be included as 1 byte data. Accordingly, one pixel 421 may have a data size of 3 bytes, and the entire image may have a data size equal to the number of pixels included in the image multiplied by a value of 3 bytes.

In this case, the PNG32-bit method 420 may have a data size of 32 bits per pixel, that is, a data size of 4 bytes. In this case, 3 bytes among 4 bytes may be data of RGB color as described above, and the remaining 1 byte may be data for representing transparent information for a transparent effect.

In addition, the method of including the color information in the pixel 431 according to the palette PNG method 430 in the image 410 may include data corresponding to each color index in the pixel 431 as 1 byte data. . Accordingly, one pixel 431 may have a data size of 1 Byte, and the entire image may have a data size equal to the number of pixels included in the image multiplied by a value of 1 Byte.

The reason why the palette PNG method 430 is called the PNG8-bit method or the Indexed PNG method may be because the data size of one pixel 431 is 1 byte corresponding to 8 bits and indicates a color value through a color index.

Accordingly, in order to generate a cache having a cache image quality level corresponding to the second level according to the present invention, an image corresponding to an application execution screen may be encoded in the paletted PNG method 430 and stored. In this case, when the image 410 is encoded using the palette PNG method 430, the size of data can be reduced to a quarter of that of encoding using the PNG32bit method 420 illustrated in FIG. 4 .

In this case, since the number of colors that the pixel 431 of the palette PNG method can represent is limited to 1 byte, the image quality may be deteriorated.

5 is a diagram illustrating an image capturing process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5 , in the image capturing process according to an embodiment of the present invention, frames of a portion of the application execution screen with little screen change may be acquired.

In this case, it may be a more efficient method to provide an application execution screen to the user through a video codec-based cloud streaming service for a part with a large number of screen changes.

In this case, the previous frame 510 and the current frame 520 may be compared among the frames of the portion of the application execution screen in which the screen change is small. For example, if the previous frame 510 and the current frame 520 shown in FIG. 5 are compared, it can be seen that the two frames are divided into four regions of the same size. When the two frames are compared based on the divided regions, it can be seen that the regions corresponding to B and C in the previous frame 510 are changed to regions corresponding to B′ and C′ in the current frame 520 , respectively.

Therefore, in the image-based cloud streaming server according to the present invention, it is possible to determine and capture regions corresponding to B' and C' changed in the current frame 520 as the capture image 530 as a result of comparison. That is, the capture image 530 may be captured at the capture end of the cloud streaming server.

In addition, when the previous frame 510 and the current frame 520 are compared, if the changed portion is identified as several separate regions, one region including all the changed regions is recognized as the capture image 530 and captured. can In addition, all of the changed regions may be recognized as the captured image 530 , and a plurality of captured images 530 may be generated.

6 is an operation flowchart illustrating an image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention.

6, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention determines the network performance of at least one terminal for session connection to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers (S610) ).

For example, information on a network being used by the terminal or performance information of the network may be received together with a message for requesting a session connection from the terminal, and the determination may be made. As such, by using the information related to the network of the terminal, a server capable of providing an appropriate service to the terminal among a plurality of cloud streaming servers may be searched for and connected to the terminal.

In this case, in consideration of at least one of the bandwidth size and the read/write performance of the network, the network performance may be determined as any one of a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level. .

Bandwidth can be said to be a value indicating how much transmission capacity a channel for transmitting data through a network has. For example, if the road is wide, many cars can run at once. If the bandwidth is large, it can be determined that the transmission capacity of the channel is large because there is a lot of data that can be transmitted at once. That is, if the bandwidth is large, the capacity of data that can be transmitted at one time may be large.

Therefore, since the plurality of cloud streaming servers according to the present invention transmit large-capacity data centered on picture files to the terminal, the performance of the network can be determined in consideration of at least one of the network bandwidth or the performance of the network reading or writing data. can

At this time, the preset reference performance for determining the first level may correspond to a degree of being able to receive an image corresponding to the application execution screen provided from the cloud streaming server without a problem. For example, when the cloud streaming server encodes an image corresponding to the application execution screen as a still image and transmits it to the terminal, the network level enough to receive the image without causing a delay on the terminal side is set as the preset reference performance. can be set.

Accordingly, the second level, which is lower in performance than the first level corresponding to the preset reference performance, may correspond to a level in which a delay occurs when processing an image having a quality corresponding to an application execution screen.

At this time, the preset reference performance that can be the reference of the first level and the second level may be set according to the image quality of the application execution screen provided by the cloud streaming server, or freely set by the administrator of the cloud streaming service system and may be changed.

In this case, the cache image quality level may correspond to any one of a first level corresponding to the original image quality of the application execution screen and a second level corresponding to a lower image quality than the first level. In other words, the cache image quality level may correspond to the image quality level of the images stored in the cache provided in the cloud streaming server.

A plurality of cloud streaming servers according to an embodiment of the present invention may store only an image corresponding to any one of the first level and the second level in the cache. That is, only an image corresponding to the original quality may be stored or only a degraded image may be stored, which may be to connect the session by matching the image quality information stored in the cache with the network performance of the terminal.

In addition, according to various embodiments, there may be cases each having a cache for storing an image corresponding to the first level and an image corresponding to the second level in one cloud streaming server.

At this time, the plurality of cloud streaming servers may correspond to any one of a first cloud streaming server and a cache image quality level corresponding to a second level of the cache image quality level corresponding to the first level of the second cloud streaming server. . That is, by classifying the cloud streaming server into two types according to the quality of the image stored in the cache, the cloud streaming router can easily search for a cloud streaming server to connect with the terminal according to the network performance of the terminal. For example, a server identifier capable of distinguishing whether the first cloud streaming server or the second cloud streaming server is assigned to each of the plurality of cloud streaming servers, and the type of server can be easily distinguished using the server identifier. In addition, even if it is not a method using a server identifier, it is possible to provide a faster session connection to the terminal by displaying the two types of cloud streaming servers to be easily distinguished using various methods.

At this time, the first cloud streaming server may transmit the image stored in the cache to at least one terminal by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level. That is, if the terminal is session-connected to the first cloud streaming server through the cloud streaming router, it may mean that there is no difficulty in receiving the image corresponding to the first level of network performance of the terminal. Accordingly, the image stored in the cache is encoded with a still image so that image quality is not deteriorated and transmitted to the terminal, so that the original image quality service can be provided to the user through the terminal.

In this case, the second level may correspond to any one of the paletted PNG and the degraded JPEG. For example, the second level in which the image quality is deteriorated according to the network performance of the terminal may be generated by reducing the number of colors of the image or lowering the resolution.

In this case, in the case of the paletted PNG, 1 byte of information corresponding to a color index per pixel constituting the image may be included. This may correspond to a quarter of the data size per pixel compared to the PNG32-bit method, which has relatively good image quality. Accordingly, since the data capacity of the entire image is also reduced to a quarter, it may be suitable for an environment with poor network performance.

Also, it is possible to reduce the data size by lowering the image quality of a normal JPEG image by using a method such as lossy compression.

As described above, by using the cache image of the second level in which the image quality is lowered, that is, the data capacity corresponding to the image is reduced, a service can be provided without delay to a terminal having poor network performance. In addition, since the cloud streaming server does not have to re-render the image stored in the cache according to the network performance, resources can be saved accordingly.

At this time, when the at least one terminal corresponds to a personal computer (PC) connected through the Internet, it is determined that the network performance is at the first level, and the at least one terminal is connected through a cable modem network. When it corresponds to a connected set-top box of low performance, it may be determined that the network performance is the second level.

A cable modem may be a device used to access the Internet using a cable TV network. Such a cable modem may be installed at the end of a hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network in which optical cables and coaxial cables are mixed, that is, installed in the house of a subscriber to the cable network and connected to a set-top box. At this time, the set-top box connected through the cable modem refers to the receiving equipment for digital satellite broadcasting, and the name was given from the meaning of the box installed on the TV. If a set-top box is installed, digital television broadcasting can be received even with an analog television, and a set-top box is essential for realizing interactive television or video-on-demand. Such set-top boxes may be of many types depending on the household of the subscriber, and performance differences may occur depending on the type.

Therefore, depending on the type of set-top box, in the case of a low-performance set-top box, there may be a delay in processing the image provided in the original quality by the cloud streaming server. service can be provided.

In addition, in the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention, the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among a plurality of cloud streaming servers is at least one cloud streaming server corresponding to the network performance. Connect the terminal. For example, assuming that there is no problem in receiving high-quality images due to high network performance of the terminal, the terminal may be session-connected to a cloud streaming server having a high cache image quality level. That is, when a high-definition service can be provided due to good network performance of the terminal, a high-definition service can be provided by connecting a cloud streaming server storing a high-definition image in the cache.

However, when a terminal with low network performance is connected to a cloud streaming server that stores a high-definition image in the cache, the cloud streaming server provides a degraded image to the terminal through the process of degrading the high-quality image. can occur This may cause inefficient use of the resources of the cloud streaming server because it cannot provide a high-definition service, and the cloud streaming server must unnecessarily process the image quality degradation process.

Therefore, when the network performance of the terminal is not high, it is possible to provide a faster and more efficient cloud streaming service by connecting the cloud streaming server that stores the image at low quality in the cache accordingly.

To this end, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention determines whether the network performance of at least one terminal corresponds to the first level (S615).

As a result of the determination of step (S615), if the network performance of at least one terminal corresponds to the first level, at least one terminal is connected to the first cloud streaming server (S620).

In addition, if it is determined in step S615 that the network performance of the at least one terminal does not correspond to the first level, it is determined that the network performance of the at least one terminal corresponds to the second level, and the at least one terminal is set to the second cloud Connect to the streaming server (S630).

That is, the terminal corresponding to the first level of network performance is session-connected to the first cloud streaming server capable of providing the cache image of the first level, and the terminal corresponding to the second level of network performance is the second level of cache A session connection with a second cloud streaming server capable of providing an image may be established.

In this case, the first cloud streaming server and the second cloud streaming server may correspond to a cloud streaming server that provides an image-based cloud streaming service. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a service to a terminal through a pipeline process corresponding to rendering, capturing, still image encoding, and sending of an application execution screen.

The video codec-based cloud streaming technique can perform encoding by capturing all frames corresponding to the screen on which the application operates. However, when the frame-to-frame change is not large on the screen on which the application operates, still image encoding is performed by capturing only the area of change of the frame that has changed compared to the previous frame, as in the image-based cloud streaming technique, and displayed on the user's terminal. It is possible to display the parts except the change area in the same way and change only the change area.

In this case, it is possible to detect sections with little change between frames among frames corresponding to the execution screen of the rendered application, and detect a frame for capturing an image in a section with little change between frames. For example, it may be inefficient to provide an image-based cloud streaming service because the number of images to be captured is large in a section where there is a lot of change between frames. Therefore, in such a section with many changes, a service is performed through a video codec-based cloud streaming technique, and an image can be captured from a changed frame in order to perform an image-based cloud streaming service only in a section with little change between frames.

In this case, it is possible to capture an image corresponding to the changed portion compared to the previous frame of the frame. For example, among many frames constituting the application execution screen, the current frame and the previous frame may be compared, and a portion with a difference between the two frames may be determined as a changed portion and captured as an image. Also, when the changed portion is detected as a plurality of regions on the frame, one region including the plurality of regions may be captured as an image, or the plurality of regions may be captured as multiple images, respectively.

In this case, if the image requested from the terminal exists in the cache, the image may be acquired from the cache without capturing the image from the application execution screen. In addition, the image provided to the terminal by capturing and encoding a still image on the application execution screen is stored in the cache, so that when the terminal requests it, it can be quickly provided through the cache.

In this case, the image to be transmitted to the terminal may be compressed by a still image encoding method, and still image encoding may be performed by selecting a method corresponding to an image among several still image encoding methods.

At this time, in the present invention, since the cloud streaming server is selected according to the network performance of the terminal and the session is connected, when the image stored in the cache is encoded as a still image, a still image encoding method can be selected according to the image quality. In addition, when the image requested by the terminal does not exist in the cache and the still image is encoded by capturing the application execution screen, a still image encoding method may be selected according to the performance of the terminal and the network performance of the terminal. For example, in order to improve the speed of a cloud streaming service, the image may be compressed using a palette PNG encoding method that has a high compression rate and a low load. In addition, if you want to provide good image quality regardless of the load, you can compress the image using a PNG32-bit encoding method or a JPEG encoding method.

In addition, although not shown in FIG. 6, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention transmits and receives information related to a plurality of terminals through a communication network such as the network shown in FIG. . In particular, according to an embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to receive the performance information of the terminal together with a request for a cloud streaming service from the terminal. For example, information such as a device type or model name of a terminal requesting a session connection, a network type and network speed used by the terminal, and the like may be provided. Such terminal performance or network performance information of the terminal may be freely changeable according to the administrator setting of the cloud streaming service system.

At this time, it is possible to receive the application execution result from the cloud streaming server for the cloud streaming service requested by the terminal.

In addition, the execution result of the application corresponding to the cloud streaming service requested by the terminal may be provided to the terminal. For example, an application execution screen corresponding to a service requested by the terminal may be received from a cloud streaming server that is session-connected with the terminal and transmitted to the terminal. In addition, if the cloud streaming server and the terminal are already in a session-connected state through the cloud streaming router, then data can be transmitted and received directly through the communication network between the cloud streaming server and the terminal without going through the cloud streaming router.

In addition, although not shown in FIG. 6, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to an embodiment of the present invention provides various information generated in the process of the cloud streaming service according to the embodiment of the present invention as described above. Save.

According to an embodiment, the storage module for storing various information generated in the course of the cloud streaming service may be configured independently of the cloud streaming router to support a function for the cloud streaming service. In this case, the storage module may operate as a separate mass storage and may include a control function for performing the operation.

In addition, the cloud streaming router configured as described above may be implemented with one or more devices.

On the other hand, cloud streaming routers are equipped with memory and can store information within the device. In one implementation, the memory is a computer-readable medium. In one implementation, the memory may be a volatile memory unit, and in another implementation, the memory may be a non-volatile memory unit. In one embodiment, the storage device is a computer-readable medium. In various different implementations, the storage device may include, for example, a hard disk device, an optical disk device, or some other mass storage device.

7 is a diagram illustrating a process of connecting a session to a first cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 7 , in the process of connecting a session to the first cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention, the terminal 740 first requests a session connection to the cloud streaming server from the cloud streaming router 710 (S702). ).

Thereafter, the cloud streaming router 710 determines the network performance of the terminal 740 (S704).

In this case, the network performance may be determined as either one of a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level in consideration of at least one of a bandwidth size and network read/write performance.

Thereafter, it is determined whether the network performance of the terminal 740 corresponds to the first level ( S706 ), and if it corresponds to the first level, the session connection request of the terminal 740 is transmitted to the first cloud streaming server 720 . do (S708).

In this case, the first cloud streaming server 720 may be a cloud streaming server in which the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache is the first level corresponding to the original quality of the application execution screen.

After that, a session connection between the terminal 740 and the first cloud streaming server 720 is established (S710), and the terminal 740 receives an image-based cloud streaming service through the first cloud streaming server 720. can

8 is a diagram illustrating a process of connecting a session to a second cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 8 , in the process of connecting a session to the second cloud streaming server according to an embodiment of the present invention, the terminal 840 first requests a session connection to the cloud streaming server from the cloud streaming router 810 (S802). ).

After that, the cloud streaming router 810 determines the network performance of the terminal 840 (S804).

In this case, the network performance may be determined as either one of a first level corresponding to a preset reference performance or higher and a second level having lower performance than the first level in consideration of at least one of a bandwidth size and network read/write performance.

After that, it is determined whether the network performance of the terminal 840 corresponds to the first level (S806), and if it does not correspond to the first level, the session connection request of the terminal 840 to the second cloud streaming server 830 is sent to It transmits (S808).

In this case, the second cloud streaming server 830 may be a cloud streaming server in which the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache is the second level that deteriorates the original quality of the application execution screen.

After that, the session connection between the terminal 840 and the second cloud streaming server 830 is established (S810), and the terminal 840 is provided with an image-based cloud streaming service through the second cloud streaming server 830. can

The image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection according to the present invention may be implemented in the form of a program command that can be executed through various computer means and recorded in a computer readable medium. The computer-readable medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, etc. alone or in combination. The program instructions recorded on the medium may be specially designed and configured for the present invention, or may be known and available to those skilled in the art of computer software. Examples of the computer-readable recording medium include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks and magnetic tapes, optical media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs, and magnetic media such as floppy disks. - Includes magneto-optical media, and any form of hardware device specially configured to store and execute program instructions, such as ROM, RAM, flash memory, and the like. Examples of program instructions may include high-level language codes that can be executed by a computer using an interpreter or the like as well as machine language codes such as those generated by a compiler. Such hardware devices may be configured to operate as one or more software modules to perform the operations of the present invention, and vice versa.

As described above, in the cloud streaming service system according to the present invention, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection, and the apparatus therefor, the configuration and method of the embodiments described above are not limitedly applicable, but the above Embodiments may be configured by selectively combining all or part of each embodiment so that various modifications can be made.

According to the present invention, the network performance of at least one terminal for connecting a session to any one of the plurality of cloud streaming servers is determined, and the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance. At least one terminal may be connected to the cloud streaming server. Furthermore, it is possible to reduce the amount of storage of the cache provided for each cloud streaming server can save the cost for securing the cache, it is possible to save the overall resources of the cloud streaming system, it is possible to operate the system more efficiently.

110, 310, 710, 810: Cloud Streaming Router
120-1~ 120-N: Cloud Streaming Server
130-1~ 130-N, 740, 840: terminal 140: network
210: communication unit 220: network performance determination unit
230: connection unit 240: storage unit
320, 720, 820: first cloud streaming server
330, 730, 830: second cloud streaming server
321, 331: Cache 340: PC
350: STB 410: image
420: PNG32bit method 430: Paletted PNG method
421, 431: Pixel 510: Previous frame
520: current frame 530: captured image

Claims (10)

A network performance determination unit for determining the network performance of at least one terminal for connecting a session to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers; and
A connection unit for connecting the at least one terminal to a cloud streaming server in which the cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance
including,
the connection part
When the network performance is greater than or equal to a preset reference performance, the cache image quality level connects the cloud streaming server and the terminal corresponding to the original quality,
Cloud streaming router, characterized in that when the network performance is less than a preset reference performance, the cache image quality level connects the cloud streaming server and the terminal corresponding to the picture quality deteriorated than the original picture quality. The method according to claim 1,
The network performance determination unit
In consideration of at least one of a bandwidth size and read/write performance of the network, determining the network performance as either one of a first level corresponding to more than a preset reference performance and a second level having lower performance than the first level A cloud streaming router. 3. The method according to claim 2,
The cache image quality level is
Cloud streaming router, characterized in that it corresponds to any one of the first level corresponding to the original quality of the application execution screen and the second level corresponding to the image quality deteriorated than the first level. 4. The method according to claim 3,
The plurality of cloud streaming servers are
Cloud streaming router, characterized in that the cache image quality level corresponds to any one of a first cloud streaming server corresponding to the first level and a second cloud streaming server whose cache image quality level corresponds to the second level . 5. The method according to claim 4,
the connection part
When the at least one terminal corresponds to the first level, the at least one terminal is connected to the first cloud streaming server, and when the at least one terminal corresponds to the second level, the at least one terminal Cloud streaming router, characterized in that for connecting the terminal to the second cloud streaming server. 6. The method of claim 5,
The first cloud streaming server is
Cloud streaming router, characterized in that the image stored in the cache is transmitted to the at least one terminal by encoding the still image corresponding to the first level. delete determining, by the cloud streaming router, network performance of at least one terminal for session connection to any one of a plurality of cloud streaming servers; and
Connecting, by the cloud streaming router, the at least one terminal to the cloud streaming server whose cache image quality level of the image stored in the cache among the plurality of cloud streaming servers corresponds to the network performance
including,
The connecting step is
When the network performance is greater than or equal to a preset reference performance, the cache image quality level connects the cloud streaming server and the terminal corresponding to the original quality,
When the network performance is less than a preset reference performance, the image cloud streaming service method using a selective server connection, characterized in that the cache image quality level is connected to the cloud streaming server corresponding to the picture quality deteriorated than the original picture quality and the terminal . delete delete

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