Coordinated Adaptive Streaming System for Multi-Stream Priority Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing adaptive streaming systems face challenges when handling multiple multi-bitrate streams simultaneously, as they often result in overcorrection, leading to lower quality playback or prioritization issues, particularly when client resources are constrained.
Innovation Solution
A coordinated adaptive streaming system that registers multiple streams and receives priority indications to make informed decisions about bitrate adjustments, ensuring higher priority streams maintain quality while lower priority streams are scaled back or halted to conserve resources.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If adaptive streaming is applied to multiple multi-bitrate streams simultaneously, then the system can handle concurrent media presentations, but resource overutilization occurs leading to lower quality playback or prioritization issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the adaptive streaming management by introducing separate controllers for each stream (first controller, second controller, etc.) that operate independently but coordinate through a central coordinator. Each controller manages its respective stream's bitrate adaptation separately, preventing resource overutilization while maintaining concurrent stream handling capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where each stream controller receives feedback about resource availability and stream performance. The coordinator monitors overall system resources and provides feedback to individual controllers to adjust bitrate decisions, ensuring quality maintenance across multiple concurrent streams without resource exhaustion.
2Loss of energy
If all streams switch to lower bitrate to conserve resources, then resource overutilization is avoided, but quality degradation occurs across all streams
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different streams to operate at different quality levels simultaneously. The first stream can maintain high bitrate while the second stream uses lower bitrate, based on their individual priorities and resource requirements. This localized quality adjustment prevents uniform quality degradation across all streams while conserving overall system resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements partial action by having only the necessary streams operate at full bitrate rather than reducing all streams. The coordinator evaluates resource availability and allows the first stream to maintain high quality when resources permit, while the second stream accepts reduced quality, avoiding excessive quality loss across the board while still conserving resources.
3Manufacturing precision
If one stream consumes more resources based on adaptive streaming decisions, then that stream maintains quality, but other streams are forced to back off
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by having the coordinator establish priority indications and resource allocation expectations before streams actually consume resources. The system pre-determines which streams should receive preferential treatment under resource constraints, allowing the first stream to maintain quality without forcing the second stream to completely back off, thus balancing quality maintenance with overall throughput.
Data Source
AI summary
A coordinated adaptive streaming system provides a level of intelligence between adaptive streaming heuristics applied to multiple multi-bitrate streams playing on a client computer at the same time. The system receives a media event that includes multiple multi-bitrate streams and plays two or more of the streams. Each stream registers with the coordinated adaptive streaming system so that the system is aware of each of the streams. The system receives a priority indication from each stream that indicates the priority of the stream relative to other streams associated with the media event. The system uses the received priority indications to make adaptive streaming decisions. Thus, the coordinated adaptive streaming system provides playback that more closely aligns with a user's priorities and provides a higher quality experience to a user viewing multiple concurrent media streams.