Multicast Channel Time Offsets for Content Restart Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing multicast broadcast technology for live content, such as television programs, faces a bandwidth bottleneck when users utilize the 'Restart' or 'Start Over' function, leading to increased network congestion due to the switch from multicast to unicast mode, which is inefficient and detrimental to network performance.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that manage access to multimedia content by acquiring and rendering a set of multicast broadcast channels with different chronologically spaced broadcast times, allowing selective rendering of data representative of these channels, reducing the need for unicast mode and optimizing bandwidth usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If multicast technology is used for live content broadcast, then bandwidth consumption is reduced and network efficiency is improved, but when users request content restart, the system must switch to unicast mode which causes network congestion and bandwidth bottleneck
Solution Approach 1:
The content broadcast is segmented into multiple multicast channels, each corresponding to a different broadcast time (e.g., current live broadcast, broadcast from 5 minutes ago, broadcast from 10 minutes ago). This segmentation allows users to select and access historical content segments without requiring unicast transmission, thereby maintaining bandwidth efficiency while providing content restart functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple multicast channels with different broadcast times are created in advance before the user requests content restart. The system proactively establishes these time-separated channels (e.g., creating channels for T, T-5min, T-10min) so that when a user wants to restart content, they can directly switch to an existing channel rather than triggering a resource-intensive unicast transmission.
2Loss of information
If all data representative of multicast channels is rendered, then complete channel information is provided to users, but screen becomes overloaded and data transmission size increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and displays only the most relevant channel information (such as the current live channel and a limited number of recent historical channels) rather than rendering all available channels. This selective extraction prevents screen overload while ensuring users have access to the most useful content options.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of rendering complete information for all channels, the system renders partial information for a subset of channels that are most likely to be useful to users. This partial action approach balances information completeness with display constraints, showing enough channels to provide meaningful choice without overwhelming the user interface.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple multicast channels with different broadcast times are created, then content access flexibility is improved, but the quantity of data to be transmitted and processed increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple channels broadcast the same content but at different time offsets. By merging the content source while differentiating the timing, the system reduces redundant data transmission. The same content stream is time-shifted and distributed across multiple channels rather than transmitting identical content multiple times, thereby reducing overall data volume while maintaining access flexibility.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for managing the access, by a reader device, to a multimedia content. The method includes, for the same content: acquiring a set of multicast broadcast channels associated with respective broadcast times spaced out over time, requesting rendering of data representative of multicast channels obtained during the acquiring, and receiving a selection of one multicast broadcast channel from amongst the broadcast channels included in the rendering request.