Unified Encoder for Glitch-Free Live Streaming Failover
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current live streaming infrastructure faces reliability issues due to component failures, which can disrupt the quality of the output stream, especially in mission-critical events, as failovers using discrete components often result in glitches and are not entirely glitch-free.
Innovation Solution
A system that processes live streams in parallel ingestion pipelines, segments the streams into coherent segments, buffers and indexes them, and selects a master segment based on reliability signals to ensure seamless switching and minimize disruptions, while also transcoding streams into different bitrates and formats to maintain pipeline affinity and reliability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate hardware and software encoders are used to build redundancy, then reliability is improved, but stream continuity deteriorates due to glitches during failover
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple encoding pathways into a single unified encoder that produces both primary and secondary streams simultaneously. This eliminates the need for discrete separate encoders and allows for seamless failover by switching between streams from the same encoding instance, thereby maintaining stream continuity while preserving reliability through redundancy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary encoding by creating both primary and secondary streams in advance using the same encoder. The secondary stream is prepared as a pre-configured backup that can be activated immediately upon detecting failure in the primary stream, eliminating the delay and potential glitches associated with starting a new encoding process during failover.
2Reliability
If discrete and diverse components are used for failover, then redundancy is improved, but failover smoothness deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the failover mechanism with the primary streaming operation by using the same encoder for both primary and secondary stream generation. This integration ensures that failover is a smooth transition between two outputs from the same encoding process, eliminating the operational complexity and potential disruptions associated with switching between discrete diverse components.
3Reliability
If parallel ingestion pipelines are used, then robustness is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the functionality of multiple parallel ingestion pipelines into a single encoder that produces both primary and secondary streams. This consolidation maintains the robustness benefits of having redundant streams while reducing the operational complexity of managing separate parallel pipelines, as both streams originate from a unified encoding process.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for a live streaming platform that can redundantly process input streams in parallel ingestion pipelines is disclosed herein. Ingested input streams in the parallel pipelines can be segmented using a stable segmentation function that creates identical segments in each of the streams in the pipelines. If errors occur, or there are disruptions in one or more of the input streams or pipelines, the live streaming platform can switch between the input streams on a per segment basis to provide reliable streaming feeds to a content distribution network. A master stream can be constructed from each of the master segments per a time period based on a reliability of each of the input streams and segments. Practicing pipeline affinity by selecting subsequent master segments from the same pipeline can minimize glitches.