Virtual Live Stream Replay Using Modified Manifests for QA
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Live streaming content poses challenges in quality assurance due to intermittent issues that are difficult to reproduce and the variability of audio/video streams, making it inefficient to recreate user experiences and detect issues like lip sync.
Innovation Solution
A content recording system stores manifests and segments of live streams, generating virtual manifests to simulate live streaming at a later time, allowing playback devices to recreate the original streaming environment for quality assurance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If live streaming content is stored for a short period and then deleted to maintain system efficiency, then storage resources are preserved, but the ability to reproduce intermittent quality issues is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary archiving of live stream manifests and media segments in a durable storage system before they would normally be deleted. This advance preservation enables future reproduction of quality issues without compromising the original short-term storage efficiency model
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates copies of the live stream content (manifests and media segments) and stores them in a durable storage system. These copies enable issue reproduction while the original system maintains its efficient short-term storage operation
2Adaptability or versatility
If each stream receives different audio/video content each time a test is started, then live streaming variability is maintained, but the ability to detect consistent quality issues like lip sync problems is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a copy of the original live stream content and stores it with preserved timing information. This copy serves as a reference that maintains the same variability characteristics while enabling consistent quality measurement across multiple test runs
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary recording and preservation of the live stream content before quality testing begins. This advance preparation ensures that the same content is available for repeated testing, enabling consistent detection of quality issues while maintaining the original stream's variability
3Reliability
If live stream content is archived in a durable storage system with preserved timing information, then quality assurance capability is improved, but storage resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the archived content into manifests and individual media segments, storing them separately in the durable storage system. This segmentation enables efficient storage management and retrieval while maintaining the complete capability for quality assurance reproduction
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different storage strategies to different components: manifests are stored with full timing information for accurate reproduction, while media segments are stored in a manner that balances quality assurance needs with storage efficiency
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods described herein relate to storing and replaying live streaming content. A content recording system may provide virtual manifests to a playback device. The virtual manifests may facilitate a simulation of live streaming of content at a time other than the live streaming. The virtual manifests may be modified versions of the manifests generated during the live streaming of the content. The manifest generation time and location indicators of the content segments are modified to resemble a live stream. If a playback device requests manifests for the live streaming content at a later time, the playback device can display the content at the later time as if the content is being streamed live. This may assist in quality assurance procedures for live stream content.