WO2011017897A1

WO2011017897A1 - Media recommendation method, media control method and user gateway

Info

Publication number: WO2011017897A1
Application number: PCT/CN2009/076133
Authority: WO
Inventors: 阳彦字; 王东
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2009-08-10
Filing date: 2009-12-28
Publication date: 2011-02-17
Also published as: CN101998146A

Abstract

A media recommendation method, a media control method and a user gateway are provided by the invention. The user gateway comprises: a judgment module and a media stream control module which are connected. The judgment module is used for receiving the media recommendation request message sent by the media recommendation initiating terminal, judging if the target terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message belong to the user gateway, and notifying the identifications of the target terminals which belong to the user gateway to the media stream control module. The media stream control module is used for sending the service data stream to the target terminals after obtaining the identifications of the target terminals from the judgment module. The media recommendation and media control method of the invention do not need the participation of the equipments on the system side, therefore the network resource is saved and the use modes of the users are enriched.

Description

Media recommendation method and media control method and user gateway

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method for media recommendation and media control in an interactive Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).

Background technique

The IPTV service can provide users with a variety of multimedia services, including live broadcast, on-demand broadcast and other program formats. With the development trend of "three screens in one" or even "three networks in one", the same service can be displayed on multiple terminals at the same time and will become the basic business form. In the "three screens in one" business, media recommendation and media switching are more common application modes. The most common media switching scenarios are: When a user watches a program, the program is switched from one terminal device to another for some reason. For the user to have a better quality of experience, this switching needs to be a seamless handover, which ensures the continuity of the service during the handover process. The proportion of such business switching within the home is relatively high. For example, the user directly switches an IPTV set-top box and an on-demand program watched on the TV to a mobile device such as a mobile phone to continue watching. In the prior art, the media switching between any two devices requires the participation of the IPTV system side. The disadvantages of this technology include: (1) the IPTV system side participates in the handover, increasing the network load on the system side; (2) the IPTV system Side-to-side handover may cause service delays and affect business continuity. On the other hand, when multiple terminal devices view the same program through the same media user gateway (such as home gateway, set-top box, enterprise gateway, enterprise media gateway), if each terminal establishes a separate media connection with the external network media server. Will greatly waste network resources.

Summary of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a media recommendation method, a media control method, and a user gateway, which save network resources.

In order to solve the above problem, the present invention provides a media recommendation method, including: a media recommendation initiation terminal receiving a service data flow from an interactive network television system through a user gateway; The media recommendation initiating terminal sends a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message includes identifier information indicating one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway;

After receiving the media recommendation request message, the user gateway sends the service data stream to the destination terminal.

Further, in the media recommendation method, after the user gateway receives the media recommendation request message, the step of transmitting the service data flow to the destination terminal includes:

When the user gateway determines that the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is less than a threshold set by the system, the service data flow is separately unicasted to the destination terminal;

When the user gateway determines that the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is greater than or equal to a threshold set by the system, the user equipment performs multicast transmission to the destination terminal and the media recommendation initiating terminal. .

Further, in the media recommendation method, the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is an identifier of an destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating a destination terminal.

Further, in the media recommendation method, before the step of the gateway transmitting the service data to the destination terminal, the method further includes:

The user gateway establishes a media connection with each destination terminal.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention further provides a media control method, including: a media recommendation initiating terminal receiving a service data stream from an interactive network television system through a user gateway;

The media recommendation initiating terminal sends a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message includes identifier information of one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway;

The user gateway grants control to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data stream Authority; and

The terminal having the control authority sends a play control command to the user gateway, and the user gateway requests the play control from the system side according to the control command, so that the same play control is performed on each terminal that receives the service data stream.

Further, in the media control method, after the user gateway receives the media recommendation request message, the step of transmitting the service data flow to the destination terminal includes:

Further, in the media control method, the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is an identifier of an destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating a destination terminal.

Further, in the foregoing media control method, before the step of the gateway transmitting the service data to the destination terminal, the method further includes:

The user gateway establishes a media connection with each destination terminal.

Further, in the above media control method,

The method further includes: before the step of the user gateway granting control permission to one or more terminals of the terminal that receives the service data flow, the method further includes:

The terminal receiving the service data flow sends a control authority request to the user gateway; the step of the user gateway granting control authority to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data flow is:

The user gateway grants the control authority to the one or more terminals according to an attribute of each terminal that initiates the control authority request.

Further, in the above media control method, The play control command refers to one of the following commands: play, stop, pause, fast forward, and fast reverse.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention further provides a user gateway, including: a connected judging module and a media stream control module;

The determining module is set to:

Receiving a media recommendation request message sent by the receiving media; and

Determining whether the destination terminal indicated in the media recommendation request message belongs to the user gateway, and notifying the identifier of the destination terminal that belongs to the user gateway to the media stream control module;

The media flow control module is configured to: after obtaining the identifier of the destination terminal from the determining module, send the service data stream to the destination terminal.

Further, in the above user gateway,

The determining module is further configured to:

Determining whether the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is smaller than a threshold set by the system, and if yes, sending a unicast indication to the media flow control module, otherwise, sending the multicast to the media flow control module Instruction

The media flow control module is further configured to:

After receiving the unicast indication of the determining module, separately transmitting the service data stream to the destination terminal; and

After receiving the multicast indication of the determining module, the service data flow is multicasted to the destination terminal and the media recommendation initiating terminal.

Further, the foregoing user gateway further includes a control authority granting module;

The control authority granting module is connected to the judging module, and is configured to grant control authority to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data stream;

The determining module is further configured to:

Sending the media recommendation request message to the control authority granting module; and forwarding the playback control command sent by the terminal with the control authority to the media stream Control module

The media stream control module is further configured to: after receiving the play control command sent by the terminal with the control authority, perform unified play control on each terminal that receives the service data stream through the user gateway.

Further, in the above user gateway,

The control authority granting module is further configured to: receive a control authority request sent by the terminal, and grant control authority to one or more terminals according to an attribute of each terminal that initiates the control authority request.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention also provides an interactive network television terminal, wherein the interactive network television terminal is configured to:

And sending, by the media recommendation requesting terminal, a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message includes identifier information indicating one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway;

When acting as the destination terminal, the same service data stream received by the media recommendation originating terminal is received from the user gateway.

Further, in the network television terminal, the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is an identifier of the destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating the destination terminal.

The media recommendation and media control method of the present invention does not require the participation of the system side device, saves network resources, and enriches the use mode of the user, and is beneficial to the user.

BRIEF abstract

Figure 1 is a structural diagram of a system for completing media recommendation and media control;

2 is a structural diagram of a structure of a user gateway in an embodiment;

3 is a flow chart of a media recommendation method in an embodiment;

4 is a flow chart of a media control method in an embodiment.

Preferred embodiment of the invention As shown in FIG. 1 , the system for completing media recommendation and media control includes a terminal (including a media recommendation originating terminal and a destination terminal), a user gateway, and an IPTV system, where the IPTV system includes a service controller (also referred to as a network controller). ), IPTV service controller, media server;

Service controller, responsible for unified control of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) signaling; IPTV service controller, responsible for logic control function of IPTV service, is the main part of IPTV service control, all IPTV services are in it Under the control of;

The media server is a major component of the Content Delivery Network (CDN) in the IPTV system. It provides media services for terminal devices, including media control and media delivery. The control functions of the media server are different in different standards, and the name and structure are different. In the ITU-T standard, the media function corresponds to content delivery and storage, and further includes: CDN (master) controller or CDN Control function (Content Delivery

CDNC/CDNMC/CDNCF), corresponding to MF (media function) in TISPAN, corresponding to CC (cluster control) and CDF (media service function) in OIPF standard.

The media recommendation initiating terminal is configured to establish a service path with the interactive network television (IPTV) system through the user gateway (the process of establishing the service path includes signaling interaction with the service controller, the IPTV service controller, and the media server, and the process is standard a process, which is not described herein again, and receives a service data flow through the service path; and is further configured to send a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message indicates that one or more of the user gateways belong to the same The destination terminal is further configured to receive and play the service data stream of the multicast mode when the user gateway sends the service data stream in a multicast manner. The terminal is an IPTV terminal, and may be a set-top box or a packet assembler/disassembler (PAD).

As shown in FIG. 2, the user gateway includes a connected judging module and a media stream control module, and a control authority granting module connected to the judging module.

The user gateway may be a home gateway, or may be a home gateway and other media device combination. If the latter, the home gateway is responsible for the network level connection, the media device is responsible for responding to the media request of the terminal, and the user gateway has a unicast transfer. Multicast capability and ability to handle multicast correlation protocols.

a judging module, configured to receive a media recommendation request message sent by the media recommendation initiating terminal, and determine Whether the destination terminal indicated in the media recommendation request message belongs to the user gateway, and notifying the media flow control module of the identifier of the destination terminal that belongs to the user gateway, and sending the media recommendation request message to the control authority granting module; The method is further configured to determine whether the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is smaller than a threshold set by the system, and if yes, send a unicast indication to the media flow control module, otherwise, send a multicast indication to the media flow control module; And being used to receive the play control command sent by the terminal with the control authority, and then forwarded to the media stream control module;

a media stream control module, configured to send the service data stream to the destination terminal after the identifier of the destination terminal is obtained by the determining module, and specifically, after receiving the unicast indication of the determining module, the service data is sent The unicast transmission is performed to the destination terminal respectively. After receiving the multicast indication of the determining module, the service data stream is sent to the destination terminal and the media recommendation initiating terminal for multicast transmission. The media stream control module is further configured to: after receiving the play control command sent by the terminal with the control authority, perform unified play control on each terminal that receives the service data stream by using the user gateway.

The control authority granting module is configured to grant control authority to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data stream.

As shown in FIG. 3, the media recommendation originating terminal and the destination terminal (which may be more than one, the destination terminal in the figure is only an example) are at a user gateway (for example, a home gateway or a corporate gateway), and each terminal connects to the IPTV network through the user gateway. This user gateway can handle HTTP requests, RTSP requests, and more.

The media recommendation method includes the following steps:

Step 301: The terminal performs a network attaching and device discovery process.

The media recommendation originating terminal, the destination terminal, and the user gateway perform a device discovery process, obtain an IP address, and attach to the network. The device discovery operation may use a protocol such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). The device discovery step may be completed when the device is powered on, which is not a mandatory step when the media is recommended.

Step 302: The media recommendation initiating terminal passes the user gateway and the service controller in the IPTV network,

The IPTV service controller, media function and other entities establish a service channel to complete the connection of an on-demand program;

This step is a normal on-demand program creation process, and the media connected to the user gateway. The network and its control channel enable Network Address Translation (NAT) and Application Layer Gateway (ALG) functions to save the correspondence between the IP address and port number of the terminal in the gateway.

Step 303: The media recommendation initiating terminal performs media recommendation to other terminals.

This step specifically includes the following:

Step 303a: The media recommendation initiating terminal initiates a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message indicates one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway; the media recommendation request message may carry each destination terminal. Identification or IP address or other parameter that indicates the destination terminal.

Step 303b: The user gateway parses the identifier or IP address of each destination terminal from the media recommendation request message, and sends a media recommendation request message to each target terminal.

Step 303c: After receiving the media recommendation request message, the destination terminal returns a confirmation message to the user gateway.

Step 303d: The user gateway receives an acknowledgement message from the destination terminal, and establishes a media connection with each destination terminal.

In step 303e, the user gateway determines whether the unicast-to-multicast function is enabled. If the number of the destination terminals is less than the threshold set by the system (for example, the threshold is 3), the user gateway determines to use the unicast transmission mode, and performs step 304; When the number of the system is greater than the threshold set by the system, the user gateway determines to use the multicast sending mode, and performs step 305;

In step 304, the service data flow on the service connection of the media recommendation originating terminal is separately sent to the destination terminal for unicast transmission; the process ends.

Step 305: The user gateway constructs a multicast group, where the multicast group includes a media recommendation originating terminal and each destination terminal.

Step 305a: The user gateway enables the multicast function, and notifies the media recommendation originating terminal and each destination terminal of the multicast information.

Step 305b: The media recommendation initiating terminal and each destination terminal return an acknowledgement message to the user gateway, and join the multicast group. The process of establishing a multicast group in step 305 is an existing standard process, and is not described here.

Step 306: The user gateway changes the sending method of the service data flow between the media function from the IPTV system and the media recommendation initiating terminal from the unicast mode to the multicast mode;

Step 307: The user gateway sends the service data flow to the media recommendation originating terminal and the destination terminal for multicast transmission, and the process ends.

In the above method, multiple terminal devices share a media connection from the outside, which greatly saves external network resources; and any user exit does not affect the viewing of other users, which is very convenient to implement; The user's terminal device participates, is not controlled by the system side, reduces network load; any user can control media playback shared by multiple users.

The method of the present invention involves the following two situations: the operator allows the user gateway in the present invention to perform the unicast operation of one terminal to the multicast operation of multiple terminals; or, the operator performs the program content on the program. Encryption, when multiple terminals that can simultaneously accept the multicast data of the user gateway need to be in the same copyright domain, the above method can be implemented; but neither of these cases affects the smooth implementation of the above method.

The present invention also provides a media control method based on further operations after completion of the above media recommendation method.

As shown in FIG. 4, the media control method includes the following steps:

Step 401: The media recommendation method is used by the user gateway to send the same service data flow (in unicast mode or multicast mode) to the media recommendation originating terminal and the destination terminal.

Step 402: The user gateway grants control authority to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data stream.

This step includes:

Step 402a: The media recommendation initiating terminal initiates a control permission request to the user gateway; the request may be initiated in an HTTP POST manner;

Step 402b: The user gateway returns a confirmation request to the media recommendation originating terminal, and grants the media recommendation to initiate the terminal control authority.

The user gateway saves the policy set by the system, that is, the terminal that sets part type or attribute has the right to perform media playback control, and the user gateway judges the terminal's control request according to the policy, that is, whether the terminal has the right to perform media playback control, of course. This policy can also be set to have the right to each user. Take control. When each terminal initiates a control permission request to the user gateway, the user gateway may perform comparison according to the attributes of each terminal.

Step 403: The terminal having the control authority sends a play control instruction to the user gateway; the play control command may be one of the following commands: play, stop, pause, fast forward, rewind.

Step 403a: When the terminal having the control authority sends the playback control command in the manner of HTTP POST, the playback control instruction is encapsulated in the HTTP POST field. When the playback control command is sent in the RTSP manner, the RTSP command is directly sent, for example, the playback command is RTSP. Play instructions.

Step 403b, the gateway processes the control request and replies to the acknowledgement message;

Step 404: The user gateway determines, according to the control authority or the control logic maintained by itself, whether to send the control command to the media service function; the user gateway sends the control command to the media server, requests the media service, and implements media play control;

The user gateway sends the control command to the IPTV system side media server, and the media server controls the media play according to the received control command. The specific control method has been standardized, and will not be described here.

Step 405: The user gateway performs the same playback control on each terminal that receives the service data flow according to the control instruction, and the process ends.

The media control method can perform unified control operations on each terminal that receives the service data stream, especially in the application of the home gateway, which is beneficial to the user.

The present invention is suitable for an application scene in which a plurality of terminal devices view the same program through the same user gateway.

The above description is only the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes can be made to the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and scope of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Industrial applicability

Claims

Claim

1. A media recommendation method, comprising:

The media recommendation initiating terminal receives the service data stream from the interactive network television system through the user gateway;

The media recommendation initiating terminal sends a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where the media recommendation request message includes identifier information indicating one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway;

2. The media recommendation method according to claim 1, wherein, after the user gateway receives the media recommendation request message, the step of transmitting the service data flow to the destination terminal comprises: When the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is less than a threshold set by the system, the service data stream is separately transmitted to the destination terminal; and

The media recommendation method according to claim 1, wherein the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is: an identifier of an destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating a destination terminal.

The media recommendation method according to claim 3, wherein before the step of transmitting, by the gateway, the service data stream to the destination terminal, the method further includes:

The user gateway establishes a media connection with each destination terminal.

5. A media control method, comprising:

The media recommendation initiating terminal sends a media recommendation request message to the user gateway, where And including, in the media recommendation request message, identifier information of one or more destination terminals that belong to the user gateway;

The user gateway grants control rights to one or more of the terminals receiving the service data stream;

The media control method according to claim 5, wherein, after the user gateway receives the media recommendation request message, the step of transmitting the service data flow to the destination terminal comprises: When the number of the destination terminals indicated in the media recommendation request message is less than a threshold set by the system, the service data stream is separately transmitted to the destination terminal; and

The media control method according to claim 5, wherein the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is: an identifier of an destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating a destination terminal.

The media control method according to claim 7, wherein before the step of the gateway transmitting the service data stream to the destination terminal, the method further includes:

The user gateway establishes a media connection with each destination terminal.

9. The media control method according to claim 5, wherein

Before the step of the user gateway granting control permission to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data flow, the method further includes: receiving, by the terminal receiving the service data flow, a control permission request to the user gateway ;

The user gateway grants control to one or more terminals in the terminal that receives the service data stream The steps for making permissions are:

10. The media control method according to claim 5 or 9, wherein

The play control command refers to one of the following commands: play, stop, pause, fast forward, and fast reverse.

A user gateway, comprising: a connected judging module and a media stream control module; wherein the judging module is configured to:

12. The user gateway of claim 11, wherein

The determining module is further configured to:

The media flow control module is further configured to:

The user gateway according to claim 11 or 12, further comprising a control authority granting module;

The control authority granting module is connected to the judging module, and is configured to receive the service One or more terminals in the terminal of the data stream grant control rights;

The determining module is further configured to:

Sending the media recommendation request message to the control authority granting module; and forwarding the play control command sent by the terminal with control authority to the media stream control module;

14. The user gateway of claim 13, wherein

15. An interactive network television terminal, the setting being:

The network television terminal according to claim 15, wherein the identifier information included in the media recommendation request message is: an identifier of an destination terminal or an identity identifier IP address or other parameter indicating a destination terminal.