Streaming Content Replacement Latency Reduction

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current video streaming technologies face challenges in seamlessly integrating replacement content, such as advertisements, into live streaming events while maintaining low latency, as existing methods often disrupt the viewing experience and fail to adapt content effectively to individual viewer characteristics.

Innovation Solution

A session-specific streaming content replacement system that generates variant playlists for each viewer, allowing for targeted replacement content based on viewer and content characteristics, with techniques like segment duration adjustment and timestamp manipulation to minimize latency.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If replacement content is integrated into live streaming content, then advertising and notification delivery is improved, but latency increases and real-time viewing experience deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent replacement capabilityVSAvoidstreaming latency

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The streaming content is divided into discrete segments that can be individually replaced. The system segments the live stream into manageable units, allowing replacement content to be inserted at segment boundaries without disrupting the overall stream timing, thus minimizing latency impact while enabling targeted content replacement.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

Replacement content is prepared and pre-processed in advance before being inserted into the live stream. The system pre-renders replacement segments and maintains them in a ready state, so when replacement is needed, the content can be immediately substituted without processing delays, reducing the latency introduced by content replacement.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Adaptability or versatility

If replacement content is integrated into live streaming content, then advertising and notification delivery is improved, but seamless integration fails to be achieved

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent replacement capabilityVSAvoidviewing experience continuity

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies different quality and formatting characteristics to replacement content segments to match the surrounding primary content. By adjusting local properties such as resolution, bitrate, and encoding parameters of replacement segments to align with adjacent primary segments, the system ensures seamless visual transitions and maintains viewing experience continuity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adjusts technical parameters of replacement content including encoding bitrate, resolution, and segment duration to match the characteristics of primary streaming content. This parameter matching ensures that replacement segments blend smoothly with surrounding content, preventing noticeable disruptions in the viewing experience.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

3Adaptability or versatility

If replacement content is integrated into live streaming content, then advertising and notification delivery is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent replacement capabilityVSAvoidsystem architecture complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system employs a universal content replacement architecture that can handle multiple types of replacement content (advertisements, notifications, informational segments) through a single integrated framework. This multi-functional design consolidates what would otherwise require separate processing systems, managing complexity while maintaining versatility in content replacement capabilities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS10313412B1Latency reduction for streaming content replacement

Publication Date: 2019.06.04 TWITCH INTERACTIVE INC

AI summary

First streaming video content may be received from a provider. The provider may issue a request to replace part of the first streaming video content with replacement content, such as advertisements. Second streaming video content may be selected as a replacement for a first video player, while third streaming video content may be selected as a replacement for a second video player. Instructions may be sent to the first and the second video player to play a first portion of the first streaming video content, followed by their respective selected replacement content, followed by a third portion of the first streaming video content, with the respective selected replacement content replacing a second portion of the first streaming video content. Replacement of the second portion of the first streaming video content may sometimes introduce latency, which may be reduced using various techniques.