Edge Device for Seamless ABR Asset Switching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current content delivery systems experience high latency and encoding inefficiencies when switching between adaptive bitrate (ABR) assets, leading to a degradation of user experience due to the need for client devices to send separate requests and the inefficiencies in encoding across multiple systems serving multiple clients.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an edge device with multiple network interfaces that receives and encodes source ABR assets independently, allowing for seamless switching between assets without client device control, reducing latency and encoding costs by concurrently providing encoded assets to multiple clients with similar characteristics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If client devices send separate requests to multiple content delivery systems for ABR assets, then the systems can independently manage and deliver content, but the system latency increases and user experience degrades
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple content delivery systems into a unified content delivery system that coordinates ABR asset delivery across multiple sources. This consolidation allows the system to maintain independent delivery capabilities while reducing latency by eliminating redundant client requests and coordinating asset delivery centrally.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple content delivery systems independently encode ABR assets for multiple clients, then each system can operate autonomously, but encoding inefficiencies increase and resources are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The unified content delivery system implements multi-functionality by serving multiple clients from multiple sources while centralizing encoding operations. This allows the system to maintain autonomous operation capabilities across different content sources while achieving encoding efficiency through shared encoding resources that can serve multiple clients simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines encoding operations across multiple content delivery systems into a unified encoding process. This merging allows the system to avoid redundant encoding of the same ABR assets for multiple clients, reducing encoding costs and energy consumption while maintaining the ability to serve diverse content sources.
3Ease of operation
If client devices control switching between ABR assets through requests, then the client can adapt to its specific needs, but the complexity of coordination between multiple systems increases
Solution Approach 1:
The unified content delivery system acts as an intermediary between client devices and multiple content sources. This mediator maintains client-controlled adaptation by responding to client requests while simplifying system coordination by centralizing the management of multiple content delivery systems, reducing the complexity of inter-system coordination.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is performed at a network device including a plurality of network interfaces. The method includes obtaining a first source adaptive bitrate (ABR) asset and a second source ABR asset. The method includes encoding the first source ABR asset in order to generate a first plurality of video representations, and encoding the second source ABR asset in order to generate a second plurality of video representations. The method includes providing, to a first client device, a first one of the first plurality of video representations. The method includes, in response to detecting satisfaction of a source change condition with respect to the first client device, providing, to the first client device, a first one of the second plurality of video representations, and ceasing to provide the first one of the first plurality of video representations to the first client device.