Selective Internal Forwarding in Distributed Media Server Conferences
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing video and audio conferencing solutions face challenges with network bandwidth limitations and processing power constraints, especially in large conferences, as they often require sending all media data to all participants, leading to inefficient use of resources.
Innovation Solution
Implementing selective internal forwarding among media servers, where each server determines which media data to forward to other servers based on factors like dominant speaker identification and threshold values, reducing the amount of data transmitted and processed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If all video and audio data from each participant is sent to every other participant in a large conference, then complete media distribution is achieved, but network bandwidth consumption becomes excessive and processing power requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the conference participant group into multiple subsets, with each media server responsible for a specific subset. Instead of distributing all media data to all participants, each server distributes only the media data relevant to its subset, thereby reducing overall network bandwidth consumption while maintaining complete media distribution across the entire conference.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality optimization by allowing each media server to independently determine and distribute media data based on local conditions and requirements. Each server optimizes media distribution for its local subset of participants, enabling differentiated media quality and distribution strategies tailored to specific conference groups while reducing global bandwidth usage.
2Power
If multiple media servers are used for a single video or audio conference to share computing workload, then processing power requirements are reduced, but bandwidth usage becomes inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the conference into multiple segments, with each media server handling a specific subset of participants. This segmentation allows processing power to be distributed across multiple servers, reducing the computational burden on each individual server while optimizing bandwidth usage by limiting data transmission to only those servers and participants that need the data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements partial action by having each media server transmit only the necessary portion of media data to its assigned subset of participants, rather than all media data to all participants. This partial transmission approach reduces redundant data transmission across the network, improving bandwidth efficiency while maintaining adequate processing distribution.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method comprises establishing, by media servers, a video conference for client computing devices, each media server receiving audio data and video data from a local subset of the client computing devices, selecting, by each media server, a portion of the local subset for which to send audio data to other media servers, sending, by each media server, audio data associated with the portion to other media servers, after receiving audio data from other media servers, generating, by each media server, ordered global list data that identifies each client computing device for which the media server has received audio data, based on the global list data and by each media server to other media servers, sending video data for each client computing device of the local subset that satisfies a threshold value.