Codec Selection for End-to-End Media Transmission Without Transcoding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing digital media distribution technologies often require multiple transcoding processes, leading to latency and loss of fidelity in media transmission between incompatible mobile devices, resulting in an unsatisfactory customer experience.
Innovation Solution
Implementing end-to-end encoding and decoding of media at the network edge by selecting a mutually compatible codec for the sending and receiving devices, eliminating or minimizing the need for transcoding through lossless or no transcoder usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple transcoding processes are used to ensure compatibility between incompatible mobile devices, then adaptability is improved, but latency increases and fidelity is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-establishing codec compatibility information in a database before communication occurs. The system proactively queries the database to determine codec compatibility between devices and pre-selects appropriate codecs, eliminating the need for real-time transcoding and reducing latency while maintaining compatibility.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple transcoding processes are used to ensure compatibility between incompatible mobile devices, then adaptability is improved, but fidelity is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary queries to a database to determine codec compatibility before communication begins. By pre-identifying compatible codecs between sending and receiving devices, the system can establish direct encoding/decoding relationships without intermediate transcoding, thereby preserving media fidelity while ensuring compatibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a database as an intermediary that stores codec compatibility information. This intermediary enables the sending and receiving devices to determine their compatibility status without direct interaction or trial-and-error transcoding, allowing them to select appropriate codecs in advance and maintain fidelity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If transcoding is performed through intermediaries, then compatibility between devices is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the codec compatibility determination logic from the communication devices themselves and relocates it to an external database. The devices no longer need to contain complex transcoding capabilities or perform complex compatibility checks, as this function is externalized to the database that provides pre-computed compatibility information.
Solution Approach 2:
The database serves as an intermediary that handles the complexity of codec compatibility determination. Instead of each device needing to understand and manage multiple codecs and compatibility rules, the database centralizes this complexity and provides simple compatibility answers to the communicating devices.
Data Source
AI summary
In one example, the present disclosure describes a device, computer-readable medium, and method for improving media quality at the network edge by encoding the media into a digital stream that is carried, end-to-end, to a peer edge device. For instance, in one example, a method includes initiating, by a first computing device, a connection to a second computing device, selecting, by the first computing device, a codec for encoding data into a data stream, wherein the codec is selected such that the data stream can be decoded by the second computing device without being transcoded by an intermediary, encoding, by the first computing device, the data into the data stream using the codec, and sending, by the first computing device, the data stream to the second computing device.