Temporary Pre-Roll Content for Rewind-Aware Streaming Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional content streaming methods inflexibly insert pre-roll content into the playback sequence, which remains unchanged even with user adjustments, leading to undesirable experiences, especially during live streaming where playback timing shifts occur.
Innovation Solution
Temporarily insert pre-roll content before streaming content, allowing seamless transition to requested streaming content upon playback time shifts, ensuring pre-roll content is not replayed during rewinds.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If pre-roll content is inserted into the streaming content manifest, then pre-roll content can be played before streaming content, but the pre-roll content remains in the playback sequence even after playback time adjustments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the content stream into pre-roll content and streaming content portions, allowing the pre-roll content to be played before the streaming content without being permanently embedded in the manifest. This segmentation enables independent control over pre-roll content playback and streaming content playback, resolving the contradiction between providing pre-roll content and maintaining playback timing flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by playing pre-roll content before the requested streaming content begins, but the pre-roll content is not permanently added to the manifest. Instead, the system prepares and plays pre-roll content temporarily, then removes it from the playback sequence, allowing subsequent playback adjustments to exclude the pre-roll content. This resolves the contradiction by providing pre-roll content only when needed while maintaining manifest flexibility.
2Reliability
If pre-roll content is added to the content stream manifest, then pre-roll content is provided with streaming content, but the pre-roll content becomes part of the playback stream that remains with playback regardless of alterations to playback timing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the pre-roll content insertion temporary and conditional rather than static and permanent. The system dynamically determines whether to play pre-roll content based on the requested streaming content and playback timing, and dynamically removes pre-roll content from the sequence after playback. This dynamic approach resolves the contradiction by ensuring reliable pre-roll content delivery when needed while avoiding permanent embedding that would complicate playback sequence management.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the pre-roll content from the permanent manifest by playing it temporarily before the streaming content and then removing it from the playback sequence. This extraction allows the pre-roll content to be delivered reliably when needed without becoming a permanent part of the stream, thereby avoiding the complexity of managing persistent pre-roll content in the playback sequence.
3Productivity
If traditional content insertion techniques are used, then pre-roll content is provided with streaming content, but the pre-roll content cannot be avoided during playback time shifts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter of pre-roll content persistence from permanent to temporary. By modifying this parameter, the system can provide pre-roll content efficiently during initial playback while allowing users to control playback timing without being forced to rewatch pre-roll content. This parameter change resolves the contradiction by maintaining content stream efficiency while improving user playback control.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure is generally directed to providing temporary pre-roll content with requested streaming content. Specifically, pre-roll content is provided to an end-user prior to an initial playback of streaming content, but is not presented when a backward time shift event occurs within playback of the streaming content. In this manner, missed segments prior to the start of the streaming content may be presented in lieu of the pre-roll content during the backward time shift event.