Hybrid Multicast Unicast Playlist for Personalized Media Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current video content distribution methods, such as progressive and streamed video, lack the ability to efficiently deliver personalized advertisements while maintaining a linear television viewing experience and ensuring quick channel changes.
Innovation Solution
A hybrid multicast/unicast content distribution system that generates a playlist of media content files with personalized advertisements, allowing clients to receive personalized content through unicast while common program files are delivered via multicast, enabling efficient and reliable content delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If progressive video is used to deliver personalized advertisements, then customization capability is improved, but system complexity and bandwidth consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The video content is segmented into common segments (delivered via multicast) and personalized segments (delivered via unicast). This allows the system to maintain complexity only for generating personalized segments while using efficient multicast for the majority of content, thus improving personalization capability without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a universal multicast mechanism that can serve multiple clients simultaneously with common content, while adding unicast capability only where needed for personalization. This multi-functionality approach allows the system to handle both standardized and customized delivery requirements without duplicating the entire delivery infrastructure.
2Adaptability or versatility
If progressive video is used for content delivery, then personalized advertisements can be inserted, but bandwidth consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting video content into common and personalized portions, the system delivers common segments once via multicast to multiple clients, and only delivers personalized segments individually via unicast. This dramatically reduces total bandwidth consumption compared to delivering complete personalized videos to each client.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges multicast and unicast delivery mechanisms into a hybrid approach. The multicast stream provides the base content efficiently shared among clients, while unicast streams add only the necessary personalized elements, combining the efficiency of multicast with the customization of unicast.
3Productivity
If streamed video is used for efficient multicast delivery, then bandwidth efficiency is improved, but personalized advertisement insertion becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The streamed video is segmented at the protocol level to distinguish between common content portions (suitable for multicast) and personalized advertisement portions (suitable for unicast). This segmentation enables the system to maintain efficient multicast delivery while inserting personalized content at appropriate segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically selects the delivery mechanism (multicast or unicast) based on the content type and client requirements. Common video segments are delivered via efficient multicast, while personalized advertisement segments are delivered via unicast, creating a dynamic hybrid delivery system that adapts to different content requirements.
4Device complexity
If traditional video distribution is used, then system simplicity is maintained, but channel change speed decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system prepares and buffers video segments in advance, organizing them by channel and segment type. When a channel change is requested, the client can quickly switch to the pre-organized segments for the new channel without waiting for complete video rebuffering, significantly improving channel change speed while maintaining reasonable system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a method comprising encoding, by a server comprising a processor, media content to generate a plurality of media content files each having a filename and a uniform resource locator. The method also comprises receiving a channel request from a client media processor and generating a playlist. The playlist is mapped to the requested channel, and includes a filename and uniform resource locator for a personalized content file that is not included in the media content files. The method further comprises receiving a file request from the client media processor in accordance with the playlist, multicasting the plurality of media content files so that the client media processor receives the plurality of media content files, and delivering the personalized content file to the client media processor to enable presentation of personalized content in accordance with the playlist. Other embodiments are disclosed.