Distributed Media Player Content Indexing for Aircraft Entertainment
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current seat-centric In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) systems require significant storage for a full content set at each seat, making them costly and inefficient, and existing solutions do not adequately address the need for cost-effective redundancy in content distribution.
Innovation Solution
A vehicular entertainment system utilizing multiple media players that store fractions of a full content set, allowing each player to index and obtain missing content from other players over a network, thereby reducing storage requirements and increasing redundancy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a full content set is stored at each seat in seat-centric IFE systems, then system redundancy is improved, but storage space requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The content set is divided into multiple segments or chunks, where each media player stores only a portion of the complete content set. The indexing system enables players to locate and retrieve specific segments from other players, replacing the need for every player to store the entire content set while maintaining access to all content.
Solution Approach 2:
An indexing system acts as an intermediary between media players, enabling players to efficiently locate and retrieve content segments stored on other players. This mediator mechanism allows distributed storage while maintaining the functionality of a centralized system, reducing individual storage requirements without sacrificing content accessibility.
2Volume of stationary object
If content is distributed across multiple media players, then storage cost is reduced, but system complexity increases due to content sharing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
Each media player is equipped with the capability to independently index the content set and autonomously obtain missing segments from other players without requiring centralized management. This self-service approach distributes the complexity across individual players rather than concentrating it in a central system, making the complexity manageable and scalable.
Solution Approach 2:
The indexing system provides feedback mechanisms that enable media players to determine what content segments they possess and what segments they need to retrieve from other players. This feedback loop optimizes content sharing by preventing redundant transmissions and enabling efficient retrieval only when necessary.
3Volume of stationary object
If fractions of content set are spread over multiple players, then storage efficiency is improved, but content access time may increase due to network retrieval
Solution Approach 1:
The content set is pre-divided into segments and distributed across multiple media players before playback begins. The indexing system is pre-established, allowing players to quickly locate needed segments without requiring real-time content creation or assembly, reducing retrieval time despite distributed storage.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically determines content retrieval strategies based on current system state, including which players are available and what segments they contain. This dynamic approach allows the system to optimize retrieval paths and minimize access time by selecting the most efficient source for each content segment.
Data Source
AI summary
Entertainment systems for aircraft and other vehicles are described having a plurality of media players. The media players collectively store a full content set, with each media player storing only a fraction of the full content set. Each of the media players can be configured to index the full content set, such that media players can obtain missing content.