Gapped Adaptive Bitrate Streams for Live Media Latency Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing technologies for encoding and decoding live adaptive bitrate media content streams face challenges in reducing latency and lag when users request live streams or change channels, especially when the request is made at a time other than a segment boundary.
Innovation Solution
The proposed solution involves dividing a live media content stream into segments and subsegments, where the segments are encoded into primary adaptive bitrate streams and the subsegments are encoded into secondary adaptive bitrate streams. This allows for decoding and display of live media content without waiting for the next segment boundary, reducing latency and lag.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If media content players wait for the next segment boundary to start decoding, then decoding can proceed smoothly with proper synchronization, but lag and latency increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides media content segments into smaller subsegments with different starting boundaries. This segmentation allows the player to select and decode from multiple possible starting points within a segment, rather than being constrained to wait for the next segment boundary. The subsegments are created by splitting the original segment at different temporal positions, enabling flexible entry points that reduce waiting time while maintaining proper decoding synchronization.
2Productivity
If media content players request the current segment from the beginning, then decoding can start immediately at a segment boundary, but lag and latency are introduced because the stream is behind the live broadcast
Solution Approach 1:
The patent prepares multiple subsegments with different starting boundaries in advance within each media content segment. When a player requests to join the live stream at any time, the appropriate subsegment that aligns with the current playback time is already prepared and can be immediately decoded. This preliminary preparation of multiple entry points eliminates the need to wait for segment boundaries or request from the beginning, allowing immediate decoding start without falling behind the live broadcast.
3Device complexity
If traditional segment-based ABR streams are used, then encoding and decoding are simplified, but channel changes and stream requests cannot be handled efficiently at arbitrary times
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments each media content segment into multiple subsegments with different starting boundaries. This segmentation enables the system to provide multiple entry points within a single segment, allowing players to join or switch channels at arbitrary times without waiting for segment boundaries. The subsegments maintain the same encoding format as traditional segments, so decoding complexity remains manageable while significantly improving adaptability for channel changes and arbitrary time requests.
Data Source
AI summary
Novel tools and techniques are provided for implementing encoding or decoding of adaptive bitrate streams. In various embodiments, one or more first computing systems may divide a live media content stream into one or more segments, each segment might include a starting segment boundary and an ending segment boundary. The one or more first computing systems might encode the one or more segments into one or more primary adaptive bitrate streams. The one or more first computing systems might also divide the one or more segments of the live media content stream into one or more subsegments. Each subsegment might be less than a length of a corresponding segment of the one or more segments. The one or more first computing systems might the encode and/or a second computing system might decode the one or more subsegments into or from one or more secondary adaptive bitrate streams.