Media Server Bandwidth Aggregation for Adaptive Stream Bitrate
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing SFU architectures in real-time communication fail to adaptively adjust encoding rates, leading to poor communication quality due to mismatch between audio and video stream bit rates and available bandwidths of subscripted clients.
Innovation Solution
A media server generates discrete bandwidth information for subscripted clients, aggregates it into aggregated bandwidth information, and pushes this information to a publishing client to determine a stream pushing bit rate, ensuring the stream rate aligns with the available bandwidth distribution of all clients.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a publishing client encodes and pushes audio and video streams according to a preset bit rate, then the encoding process is simple and stable, but the bit rate may not match the available bandwidth of subscripted clients, leading to poor communication quality
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a media server as an intermediary between the publishing client and subscripted clients. The media server collects bandwidth information from all subscripted clients, performs aggregation and statistics on this information, and then pushes the processed bandwidth data back to the publishing client. This intermediary approach transforms the complex many-to-many bandwidth matching problem into a simplified process where the publishing client only needs to respond to the media server's bandwidth recommendations, thereby improving communication quality without significantly increasing the complexity at the publishing client end
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter representation from individual client bandwidth values to aggregated bandwidth statistics. Instead of the publishing client directly handling multiple individual bandwidth parameters from different subscripted clients, the media server aggregates these into statistical parameters (such as average bandwidth, bandwidth distribution) that the publishing client can more easily process to determine an appropriate encoding bit rate
2Adaptability or versatility
If the publishing client uses a fixed preset bit rate for encoding, then the encoding process is straightforward, but it cannot adapt to different network conditions of various subscripted clients
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the static fixed bit rate encoding approach into a dynamic adaptive encoding approach. The publishing client periodically interacts with the media server to obtain updated bandwidth information, and adjusts its encoding bit rate accordingly. This dynamic process allows the system to adapt to changing network conditions while maintaining relatively simple operation - the publishing client only needs to implement periodic queries and adjustments based on server-provided guidance
3Reliability
If the publishing client pushes high bit rate streams to all subscripted clients, then the communication quality can be high for clients with sufficient bandwidth, but clients with limited bandwidth will experience poor quality
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the local quality principle by enabling different subscripted clients to receive audio and video streams with bit rates tailored to their specific bandwidth conditions. The media server collects individual bandwidth information from each client, aggregates this data, and provides the publishing client with information to adjust encoding parameters. This allows the system to optimize quality for each client's local network conditions rather than using a uniform high bit rate for all clients, thereby improving overall communication quality while avoiding unnecessary bandwidth consumption
Data Source
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AI summary
Provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure are a bitrate control method, an apparatus, a media server, a terminal device and a storage medium. The method comprises: on the basis of available bandwidth information of a plurality of subscription clients, generating discrete bandwidth information for the subscription clients, the discrete bandwidth information indicating an available bandwidth allocated for the subscription clients and a bandwidth interval where the available bandwidth is located; aggregating a plurality of pieces of the discrete bandwidth information into aggregated bandwidth information, the aggregated bandwidth information indicating a candidate available bandwidth of each bandwidth interval and the aggregated number of subscription clients in each bandwidth interval; and pushing the aggregated bandwidth information to a publishing client, the aggregated bandwidth information being used for the publishing client to determine a stream pushing bitrate.