Live Stream Anchors for Context-Aware Viewer Entry
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Solution Overview
Problem
Viewers joining or rejoining live streams often experience suboptimal viewing experiences due to joining at inappropriate times, leading to a lack of context and demotivation from future streams.
Innovation Solution
A stream hosting server generates anchors at opportune moments during a live stream, allowing viewers to join or rejoin at specified timestamps with validity durations, and supports video on demand (VOD) playback with anchored segments for precise navigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If viewers join live streams at any time, then the live stream remains continuous and real-time, but viewers may join at suboptimal times and miss important context
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-identifies and marks optimal anchor points in the live stream before viewers join. These anchor points are determined by analyzing the stream content and creator input in advance, so when viewers join, they are automatically directed to the most appropriate starting point rather than having to catch up from the beginning or miss context.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism (anchor points with timestamps and validity durations) that mediates between the continuous live stream and the viewer's joining request. This intermediary layer allows the system to intercept join requests, match them with appropriate anchor points, and redirect viewers to optimal entry points without disrupting the live stream's continuous nature.
2Productivity
If the live stream continues without interruptions, then the streaming remains smooth and real-time, but viewers joining late cannot access important earlier segments
Solution Approach 1:
The live stream is conceptually segmented into multiple sections marked by anchor points with specific timestamps. Each anchor point represents a significant segment or topic change. When viewers join, they are directed to the appropriate segment rather than having to watch from the beginning, effectively dividing the continuous stream into manageable, contextually-relevant portions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis of the live stream content to identify and mark important segments before viewers join. By pre-identifying anchor points at meaningful transition points or topic changes, the system ensures that late-joining viewers can access important content without having to endure irrelevant earlier segments.
3Ease of operation
If anchors are generated at every moment, then viewers can always find optimal entry points, but the system complexity and processing load increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of generating anchors at every moment, the system applies partial action by selecting only the most critical anchor points based on content analysis and creator input. This selective approach provides sufficient anchor coverage for viewer needs while avoiding the excessive processing burden of generating anchors continuously, achieving a balance between availability and complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of anchor density from maximum possible to optimized levels. By adjusting the frequency and distribution of anchor points based on content importance and viewer behavior patterns, the system reduces the total number of anchors needed while maintaining effective viewer entry point availability, thereby reducing system complexity.
4Reliability
If the stream hosting server manages all anchor generation and validation, then anchor consistency is maintained, but the server load and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and pre-calculates anchor point information (timestamps, validity durations, subject matter tags) during the live stream or in advance, storing this metadata separately from the main video stream. This extraction allows the server to maintain anchor consistency through centralized management while reducing real-time processing requirements, as the heavy lifting of anchor analysis is done beforehand or in parallel.
Data Source
AI summary
An application on a viewer client device receives a user input to access a live stream, sends a request to access the live stream, presents information allowing a user to indicate a first anchor of a plurality of anchors of the live stream, the first anchor corresponding to a timestamp for starting a portion of the live stream, receives user input identifying the live stream and user input indicating the first anchor of the live stream, and displays the live stream beginning at the timestamp corresponding to the first anchor of the live stream.