Gateway Bandwidth Allocation for Streaming and Progressive Download ABR
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing video delivery systems face challenges in efficiently managing bandwidth for both streaming and progressive download clients within the same video delivery pipe, leading to inadequate video quality and bandwidth inefficiencies due to conflicting requirements and limited bandwidth.
Innovation Solution
A method and device for managing bandwidth allocation across a video pipe that delivers both streaming and progressive download adaptive bitrate (ABR) content, involving a gateway device that allocates bandwidth dynamically based on congestion boundaries, client priorities, and shared multicast ABR segments, allowing for dynamic bitrate changes and efficient resource distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If bandwidth is allocated to streaming clients, then video quality for streaming is improved, but bandwidth available for progressive download clients decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements dynamic bandwidth allocation where the gateway device continuously monitors network conditions and adjusts the bitrate for both streaming and progressive download clients in real-time. This allows the system to adapt bandwidth distribution based on current network capacity, ensuring optimal video quality for streaming while maintaining functionality for progressive download clients when bandwidth is limited.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of bitrate dynamically for streaming clients based on available bandwidth. The gateway device receives feedback about network conditions and adjusts the streaming bitrate accordingly, allowing the system to maintain acceptable video quality across different bandwidth scenarios while ensuring progressive download clients can still access content when bandwidth is constrained.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple clients consume video simultaneously from the same video pipe, then service coverage is improved, but bandwidth efficiency deteriorates due to content duplication
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway device merges the video streams for progressive download clients by consolidating multiple requests for the same content into a single download operation. When multiple progressive download clients request the same video content, the system combines their requests and delivers a single copy through the video pipe, thereby maintaining service coverage for multiple clients while eliminating redundant bandwidth consumption.
3Productivity
If bandwidth is allocated to progressive download clients, then download capability is improved, but streaming quality deteriorates due to bandwidth contention
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements dynamic bandwidth allocation where the gateway device continuously monitors network conditions and adjusts the bitrate for both streaming and progressive download clients in real-time. This allows the system to adapt bandwidth distribution based on current network capacity, ensuring optimal video quality for streaming while maintaining functionality for progressive download clients when bandwidth is limited.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates feedback mechanisms where the gateway device receives information about network conditions and client performance, then uses this feedback to adjust bandwidth allocation dynamically. This feedback loop enables the system to respond to changing network conditions and prioritize bandwidth allocation to maintain streaming quality when necessary, while still allowing progressive download operations to proceed when bandwidth is available.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of managing bandwidth allocation across a video pipe that delivers both streaming adaptive bitrate (ABR) content and progressive download ABR content includes receiving a designation of a congestion boundary within a video pipe, the congestion boundary designating a first percentage of the video pipe that is to be used for streaming ABR content when congestion exists on both sides of the congestion boundary, wherein a remaining percentage of the video pipe is to be used for progressive download ABR; allocating bandwidth for streaming ABR content, wherein the gateway device can allocate for streaming content only that portion of the remaining percentage of bandwidth that is not requested for progressive download content; and allocating bandwidth for progressive download content, wherein the gateway device can allocate for progressive download content only that portion of the first percentage of bandwidth that is not requested for streaming content.