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EP-3659040-B1 - METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING MEDIA CONTENT TO A CLIENT

EP3659040B1EP 3659040 B1EP3659040 B1EP 3659040B1EP-3659040-B1

Inventors

  • CLOUD, Jason Michael
  • RIEDMILLER, JEFFREY
  • KJOERLING, KRISTOFER
  • KLEJSA, JANUSZ

Dates

Publication Date
20260513
Application Date
20180726

Claims (7)

  1. A method (300) for providing media content within a media distribution network (100); wherein the media distribution network comprises a core network (110) with at least one core storage unit (111) and at least one edge network (120, 130) coupled to one or more clients (104); wherein the method comprises transforming (301) source media content (105) into an interim format, thereby providing transformed content (103); storing (302) the transformed content on at least one core and/or edge storage unit (111, 121, 131); receiving (303) a request for the source media content (105) from a client; encoding (304), in reaction to receiving the request from the client, the transformed content (103) or intermediate coded content (113) derived therefrom into encoded content (123, 133) suitable for transmission over the edge network; and sending (305) the encoded content via the edge network to the client; wherein the method comprises receiving feedback data (106, 116) from a rendering environment of the client; and the transformed content, the intermediate coded content and/or the encoded content is encoded based on the feedback data, wherein the feedback data comprises information regarding light conditions within the rendering environment, wherein encoding (304) the transformed content (103), the intermediate coded content (113) and/or the encoded content (123, 133) based on the feedback data (106, 116) comprises, adapting a masking curve based on the feedback data; and/or adapting a quantization size based on the feedback data; and/or adapting a bit allocation scheme based on the feedback data; and/or adjusting a sampling rate for encoding the transformed content and/or the intermediate coded content and/or the encoded content based on the feedback data, wherein the client (104) comprises one or more sensors (107) and/or a collection of one or more sensors (107) within the rendering environment configured to provide sensor data regarding the rendering environment of the client, and wherein the feedback data comprises and/or is based on the sensor data.
  2. The method of claim 1, wherein the feedback data (106, 116) comprises information regarding a characteristic and/or a condition of the distribution network (100).
  3. The method of claim 2, wherein the feedback data (106, 116) is received from one or more components within the distribution network (100), the feedback data comprising one or more of: information regarding a transmission delay and/or latency of the distribution network; information regarding an available bandwidth of the distribution network; information regarding a hop count between the core storage unit (111) and the client (104); information regarding a transmission reliability and/or a packet loss rate of the distribution network; information regarding a network policy and configuration which is applied within the distribution network; information regarding traffic or processing load of network encoders (112, 122, 132) within the delivery network; information regarding congestion and/or capacity constraints within the distribution network; information regarding storage availability within the distribution network; and information regarding transformed content availability/status within the distribution network.
  4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more sensors (107) comprise a light sensor.
  5. The method of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method comprises repeatedly receiving updated feedback data (106, 116), and repeatedly adapting the encoding of the transformed content (103), the intermediate coded content (113) and/or the encoded content (123, 133) based on the updated feedback data.
  6. The method of any one of the preceding claims, wherein the method comprises receiving multicast feedback data (106, 116) regarding a plurality of clients (104) which have requested the source media content (105), and wherein the transformed content (103), the intermediate coded content (113) and/or the encoded content (123, 133) is at least partially encoded based on the multicast feedback data to provide joint, at least partially encoded, content for the plurality of clients.
  7. A system for a media distribution network (100); wherein the media distribution network comprises a core network (110) with at least one core storage unit (111) and at least one edge network (120, 130) coupled to one or more clients (104); wherein the system is configured to transform source media content (105) into an interim format, thereby providing transformed content (103); store the transformed content on at least one core and/or edge storage unit (111, 121, 131); receive a request for the source media content (105) from a client; encode, in reaction to receiving the request from the client, the transformed content (103) or intermediate coded content (113) derived therefrom into encoded content (123, 133) suitable for transmission over the edge network; and send the encoded content via the edge network to the client, wherein the system is further configured to receive feedback data (106, 116) from a rendering environment of the client, and to encode the transformed content, the intermediate coded content and/or the encoded content based on the feedback data, wherein the feedback data comprises information regarding light conditions within the rendering environment, wherein encoding (304) the transformed content (103), the intermediate coded content (113) and/or the encoded content (123, 133) based on the feedback data (106, 116) comprises, adapting a masking curve based on the feedback data; and/or adapting a quantization size based on the feedback data; and/or adapting a bit allocation scheme based on the feedback data; and/or adjusting a sampling rate for encoding the transformed content and/or the intermediate coded content and/or the encoded content based on the feedback data, wherein the client (104) comprises one or more sensors (107) and/or a collection of one or more sensors (107) within the rendering environment configured to provide sensor data regarding the rendering environment of the client, and wherein the feedback data comprises and/or is based on the sensor data.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to United States Provisional Application No. 62/538,093, filed July 28, 2018 and United States Provisional Application No. 62/695,947, filed July 10, 2018. TECHNICAL FIELD The present document relates to the distribution of media content, notably video and/or audio, over a distribution network to one or more clients. BACKGROUND The shift towards a flexible, highly configurable network infrastructure driven by the adoption of software defined networking (SDN), the push of caching and compute capabilities further into the networks' edge, as well as the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) open opportunities to exploit new methods for improving the efficiency and personalization of network and/or cloud distributed, stored and delivered multimedia. However, OTT/network delivered multimedia services are using existing audio and video codecs, which were originally designed for broadcast systems that leverage a one-to-many model, in a manner for which they were not originally designed: unicast transmission, and delivery channels (i.e., networks) where intermediate storage and processing are available. The developments within both the network infrastructure and how multimedia is delivered provide an opportunity to drive a paradigm shift in how multimedia is encoded, stored, distributed, and delivered to the end consumer. The present document addresses the technical problem of providing an efficient and flexible multimedia capture, storage, distribution and/or delivery system for bi-directional, notably IP-based, network communication channels. US 2013/308699 A1 discloses an edge server in a content-distribution network (CDN) that stores a video asset in the form of partially encoded transport-stream chunks, where the partial encoding does not include quantization processing. When the edge server receives a request from a user device for a particular segment of the asset at a particular quality corresponding to a target bitrate, the edge server retrieves at least one partially encoded chunk corresponding to the request and completes the encoding (including quantization processing) of the at least one partially encoded chunk to generate an output file at the requested target bitrate. The edge server then adds corresponding audio data and any auxiliary data to the output file to generate a transport-stream file. The edge server then transmits the transport-stream to the user device as one or more transport-stream packets. US 2008/181298 A1 discloses systems, apparatuses and methods whereby coded bitstreams are delivered to downstream end-user devices having various performance capabilities. A head-end encoder/video store generates a primary coded bitstream and metadata for delivery to an intermediate re-encoding system. The re-encoding system recodes the primary coded bitstream to generate secondary coded bitstreams based on coding parameters in the metadata. Each secondary coded bitstream is matched to a conformance point of a downstream end-user device. In "Superposition Noisy Network Coding" (Ramalingam and Wang), arXiv.org DOI: 10.1109/ISIT.2011.6033918 (XP080500598), there is disclosed a superposition coding scheme for communication over a network, which combines partial decode and forward and noisy network coding. US 2014/023196 A1 describes techniques for grouping audio objects into clusters. US 2011/202641 A1 discloses a method and system for detecting and communicating access network capability information to an application server. US 2005/180578 A1 discloses an apparatus that adapts an audio signal to a usage environment including user's characteristic, terminal capacity and user's natural environments responsive to user's adaptation request. US 2013/016770 A1 discloses a cross layer rate control unit as a parameter control unit that controls video encoding parameters regarding video encoding in a video encoding unit and transmission channel parameters regarding error correction coding and modulation in a channel coding/modulation unit so as to be linked to each other. SUMMARY According to an aspect, there is provided a method for providing media content within a media distribution network according to claim 1. According to another aspect, there is provided a system for a media distribution network according to claim 7. The dependent claims relate to preferred implementations. It should be noted that the methods and systems including its preferred embodiments as outlined in the present patent application may be used stand-alone or in combination with the other methods and systems disclosed in this document. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES The invention is explained below in an exemplary manner with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein Fig. 1 shows an example distribution network;Fig. 2 shows a flow chart of an example method for providing source content to a client;Fig. 3 shows a flow chart of an example method for providi