Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/238—Interfacing the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. adapting the transmission rate of a video stream to network bandwidth; Processing of multiplex streams
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/234—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs
  • H04N21/2343—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements
  • H04N21/23439—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements for generating different versions
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/236—Assembling of a multiplex stream, e.g. transport stream, by combining a video stream with other content or additional data, e.g. inserting a URL [Uniform Resource Locator] into a video stream, multiplexing software data into a video stream; Remultiplexing of multiplex streams; Insertion of stuffing bits into the multiplex stream, e.g. to obtain a constant bit-rate; Assembling of a packetised elementary stream
  • H04N21/2365—Multiplexing of several video streams
  • H04N21/23655—Statistical multiplexing, e.g. by controlling the encoder to alter its bitrate to optimize the bandwidth utilization
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/25—Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies
  • H04N21/266—Channel or content management, e.g. generation and management of keys and entitlement messages in a conditional access system, merging a VOD unicast channel into a multicast channel
  • H04N21/2662—Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/40—Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/47—End-user applications
  • H04N21/472—End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content
  • H04N21/47202—End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N7/00—Television systems
  • H04N7/16—Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems
  • H04N7/173—Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal
  • H04N7/17309—Transmission or handling of upstream communications
  • H04N7/17318—Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Definitions

• Scalable video encoding which permits dividing a video signal into a base layer and one or more enhancement layers, can also address bit rate issues.
• FGS fine grain scalability
• the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression standards include several scalability methods.
• Using scalable encoding requires both the transmitter and receiver have the same ability to implement different coding algorithms, thus introducing additional complexity. Thus, there exists a need for a technique for managing variable bit rate video on demand that obviates the disadvantages of the prior art.
• FIGURE 2 depicts a block schematic of second preferred embodiment of a Video-on- Demand server architecture in accordance with the present principles.
• VoD server architecture 200 includes multirate video encoder 210 for generating a plurality of different bit rate representations for storage in a storage device 240 similar to the storage devices 14 and 140.
• the representations stored in the storage device 140 exist as un-packetized bit streams.
• Selection of the representations stored in storage device 240 for output in real time occurs in response to a signal received from a selector block 250.
• the selector block 250 similar in nature to the selector block 150 of FIG. 2, identifies the stored representation for output in response to a request from a static mixer/multiplexer 260 for a particular representation.
• the storage device 240 supplies the selected packetized representations to the static mixer/multiplexer.
• a packetizer 212 packetizes the output stream of the static mixer/multiplexer 260 for output on the channel (not shown).
• Representations also can be formed by switching between stored bit streams for non- reference pictures, such as for video codecs (not shown) that include pictures that are not used as reference pictures for predicting other pictures, such as MPEG-2 B frames or JVT non-stored pictures.
• Each non-reference picture can be selected from a different stored bitstream without affecting the quality of subsequently coded pictures, as the non-stored pictures are not used for prediction. Complete elimination of a non-reference picture in a representation can also occur.
• Each non-reference picture could be switched individually, or groups of non-reference pictures could be switched together, allowing for many possible total bit rate representations.
• stat mux 16 of FIG. 1 can choose to limit the number of possible representations to send to the stat mux 16 of FIG. 1 to choose those with significant differences in quality and bit rate. It is not necessary for each representation to be independently stored in storage, but a table listing the location and length of each coded frame can be stored to simplify generation of the representation when needed. It is also possible to store multiple bit rate bit streams only for the non-stored pictures and only store a single version of the reference (I and P) pictures, which can significantly reduce storage requirements.
• the stat mux 160 and the static mixer/multiplexer 260 With the VoD server architectures 100 and 200 of FIGS. 2 and 3, respectively, the stat mux 160 and the static mixer/multiplexer 260 generate a bit stream corresponding to the selected representation. If individual pictures are not transport packet aligned, the architecture 200 of FIG.
• the VoD server architecture 100 of FIG. 2 does not require any decryption or encryption in real time, as encryption is added to the transport packetization process done in non-real time and entire encrypted transport packets are stored and transmitted.
• the VoD server architecture 200 of FIG. 3 requires that encryption be performed along with transport packetization in real-time.
• VoD programs generally include both audio and video.
• audio bit rates are generally significantly lower than video bit rates and are also generally at a fixed bit rate, there is less advantage to be gained by selecting from different pre-encoded audio bit streams by the stat mux 16 and 160 of FIGS 1 and 2, and the static mixer/multiplexer 260 of FIG. 3.
• a user likely will find the switching of audio quality during the viewing of a single program disturbing.
• the total channel capacity C can be considered to be totally consumed by the video channel; assuming that a single bit rate audio stream is also sent for each program.
• the above-described methods can also be applied to audio, where multiple representations of audio programs with different bit rates and qualities can be generated.
• T length Determination of the time window T length is based on several factors. T should be as large as possible to get the most statistical multiplexing gain, but small enough to constrain the delay at the video player for start-up and switching between normal play and trick play streams. T should be small enough to meet decoder requirements.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Two-Way Televisions, Distribution Of Moving Picture Or The Like (AREA)
• Compression Or Coding Systems Of Tv Signals (AREA)
• Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
• Television Signal Processing For Recording (AREA)

Priority Applications (6)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (2)

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Family Applications (1)

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Cited By (21)

Families Citing this family (5)

Citations (4)

Family Cites Families (7)

• 2003
  • 2003-09-10 JP JP2004536401A patent/JP4643988B2/ja not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2003-09-10 AU AU2003267076A patent/AU2003267076A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2003-09-10 CN CNB038209152A patent/CN100344162C/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2003-09-10 WO PCT/US2003/028275 patent/WO2004025405A2/en active Application Filing
  • 2003-09-10 EP EP03749551.2A patent/EP1550309A4/en not_active Withdrawn
  • 2003-09-10 KR KR1020057004054A patent/KR101014451B1/ko not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2003-09-10 BR BRPI0306317A patent/BRPI0306317B1/pt unknown
  • 2003-09-10 BR BRPI0306317-8A patent/BR0306317A/pt not_active IP Right Cessation

Patent Citations (5)

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