Component Map Box Signaling for Video Adaptation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current video streaming technologies face challenges in efficiently signaling and delivering multiple representations of video content with varying characteristics, such as frame rates, bitrates, and dependencies, which limits client devices' ability to adapt and select optimal components for playback based on network conditions and user preferences.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a component map box and component arrangement box data structures that signal characteristics like frame rate, profile, level, and dependencies, allowing clients to request specific video and audio components via a streaming protocol, enabling flexible delivery and adaptation to changing network conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple representations of video content are delivered with varying characteristics, then client adaptability and playback quality improve, but data structure complexity and signaling overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The video content is divided into multiple representations with varying characteristics (frame rates, bitrates, resolutions). Each representation is segmented into independently decodable components that can be selectively delivered and decoded by the client based on network conditions and device capabilities, improving adaptability without requiring the entire content to be in one format
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimension for organizing video data by adding component-level granularity to the traditional representation structure. Components are organized in a hierarchical data structure that allows clients to navigate and select specific components based on multiple dimensions (quality, size, network conditions), resolving the contradiction between versatility and complexity
2Measurement precision
If component characteristics and dependencies are signaled, then client selection accuracy improves, but signaling overhead and data processing increase
Solution Approach 1:
Essential component characteristics (frame rate, bitrate, resolution, dependencies) are extracted and signaled in a compact format, while redundant information is omitted. The client receives only the necessary metadata to make informed selection decisions, improving selection accuracy without proportionally increasing signaling overhead
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses efficient parameter encoding and signaling mechanisms to represent component characteristics. By changing the representation of component metadata to a more compact form and signaling only relevant parameters, the system achieves accurate component selection with reduced signaling overhead
3Productivity
If clients can request specific components, then network bandwidth utilization improves, but protocol complexity and request processing increase
Solution Approach 1:
The server pre-processes video content into multiple representations and components, and pre-signds their characteristics in a data structure. This preliminary action allows clients to make immediate selection decisions based on current network conditions without requiring complex real-time processing, improving bandwidth utilization while keeping protocol complexity manageable
Solution Approach 2:
The patent designs a universal data structure and request mechanism that can handle multiple representation types and component combinations through a single standardized interface. This multi-functional approach allows the same protocol to serve various selection scenarios, improving bandwidth efficiency without proportionally increasing protocol complexity
Data Source
AI summary
A server may provide information describing characteristics of audio and video components to a client, separately from encoded samples of the audio and video components themselves. The client may use the information to select components, and then to request the selected components, e.g., in accordance with a streaming network protocol. In one example, an apparatus for sending encapsulated video data includes a processor configured to determine characteristics for components of a plurality of representations of video content, wherein the characteristics comprise at least one of a frame rate, a profile indicator, a level indicator, and dependencies between the components, and one or more interfaces configured to send the characteristics to a client device, receive a request from the client device for at least one of the components after sending the characteristics, and send the requested components to the client device in response to the request.