Live Media Streaming Segmentation for HTTP Clients
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for live video content delivery over HTTP protocols, such as chunked transfer encoding, lead to operational inefficiencies and complexity in seeking within media streams, and existing solutions like HTTP Live Streaming require specialized clients, making them incompatible with regular HTTP clients.
Innovation Solution
A media streaming server with a segmenter and controller that segments live content into files and sends them to HTTP clients, allowing for efficient delivery and management of segment files, enabling seamless playback and seeking without requiring specialized clients.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If chunked transfer encoding is used to deliver live video content, then the delivery mechanism is simple and straightforward to implement, but seeking within the media stream becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the continuous media stream into discrete chunks with defined boundaries and size indicators. Each chunk is independently addressable through HTTP range requests, enabling efficient seeking operations while maintaining the simplicity of chunked transfer encoding for continuous playback.
2Ease of manufacture
If the server uses standard file system to store live content buffer, then the implementation is simple, but the file will continue to grow indefinitely and cannot be reduced in size
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a sliding window mechanism where older chunks are discarded from the buffer as new content arrives. The buffer size is controlled by maintaining only the necessary recent chunks for live streaming, allowing the file to be reduced in size while continuously serving live content through selective deletion of expired segments.
3Productivity
If Apple's HTTP Live Streaming technique is used to stream media in segments, then the delivery efficiency is improved, but the client becomes incompatible with existing regular HTTP clients
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables regular HTTP clients to receive and play segmented media streams by using standard HTTP protocols and chunked transfer encoding. The segmentation is transparent to the client, which interacts with the server using conventional HTTP methods, thus maintaining universal compatibility while achieving efficient segmented delivery.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus for sending live streams to regular HTTP clients. An incoming live media stream is segmented into segment files. A segment list is used to maintain the logical representation of the segment segment files so that they look like one continuous file. Each segment file is sent to the client through regular HTTP protocol once it is available. Old segment files can be deleted to save storage space and reduce management overhead.