Targeted Content Prefetching for Lower-Latency Video Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
The latency-intensive process of fetching, resolving, and rendering targeted content, such as preroll advertisements, during video streaming negatively impacts user experience by prolonging the wait time for intended content.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a prefetch server that parallelizes content delivery by offloading the resolution of multiple content URLs to the prefetch server, allowing asynchronous fetching and caching of targeted content, thereby reducing overall latency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If targeted content is fetched and resolved synchronously before playback, then content delivery accuracy is improved, but user wait time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by prefetching targeted content and generating resolution requests before the actual playback time. The prefetch service receives requests from the content delivery network, obtains content configurations, and resolves content URLs in advance, storing results for later delivery to client devices, thereby reducing user wait time while maintaining delivery accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
A prefetch service acts as an intermediary between the content delivery network and client devices. This intermediary receives prefetch requests, obtains content configurations from mediation servers, resolves URLs, and stores resolved content for later delivery, enabling asynchronous processing that reduces latency without compromising content delivery accuracy
2Device complexity
If multiple content URLs are resolved sequentially, then system complexity is reduced, but processing latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the content resolution process into independent parallel tasks. Multiple content URLs are resolved simultaneously through separate prefetch requests rather than sequentially, dividing the overall processing into independent units that can be executed in parallel, thereby reducing total processing latency without significantly increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The prefetch service maintains continuous useful action by processing multiple content URLs in parallel through asynchronous operations. While one content is being resolved, other contents are simultaneously being fetched and processed, ensuring that the system continuously performs useful work rather than waiting for sequential completion, thus reducing overall latency
Data Source
AI summary
In the embodiments, a novel prefetch service implemented on a prefetch server is provided to execute content (either targeted or selected) fetch requests in parallel with other requests thereby reducing the overall latency of a content delivery system. In some aspects, a method is provided to receive a prefetch request to prefetch a targeted content item to be presented prior to presenting a primary content item on a user device, the prefetch request including prefetch request parameters; generate, a callback URL associated with the prefetch request; transmit, to a primary content server, the callback URL; obtain a targeted content configuration corresponding to the prefetch request parameters; obtain the targeted content item based on the targeted content configuration; receive, a request to provide the targeted content item, the request including the callback URL; and transmit the targeted content item.