VOD Manifests for Live Streaming Media Playback
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Many viewer devices are not designed to handle live streaming media content due to their functionality being optimized for video-on-demand (VOD) style manifests, which are finite in duration, and thus cannot play back live streaming media content effectively, limiting audience reach and viewer experience.
Innovation Solution
Generating VOD-style manifest files for live streaming media content that include future fragments with predictable naming conventions and providing overlapping playback options across different time periods, allowing viewer devices to request and play back live stream fragments using these files, and using uniform resource locators (URLs) to map requests to the correct fragments in the live stream.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If VOD-style manifest files are used for live streaming, then compatibility with existing viewer devices is improved, but the ability to handle indefinite duration content deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The manifest file structure is made dynamic by allowing the `Duration` attribute to be either a fixed value or an indefinite marker (`-1`). This enables the same manifest format to work for both VOD content with known duration and live streaming content with indefinite duration, resolving the contradiction between maintaining VOD compatibility and supporting live streaming
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter interpretation of the `Duration` field in the manifest file from a mandatory time value to an optional attribute that can indicate indefinite duration. This parameter change allows viewer devices designed for VOD to correctly interpret and handle live streaming content without requiring format changes
2Adaptability or versatility
If live streaming content is provided with indefinite duration, then audience reach is improved, but viewer device functionality is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The media server acts as an intermediary that translates live streaming content into a format compatible with VOD-optimized viewer devices. It generates manifest files with predictable naming conventions and handles the mapping between live stream time and manifest time, allowing existing devices to play live content without requiring device updates or functional changes
3Reliability
If manifest files are generated for different time periods with overlap, then playback continuity is improved, but system complexity is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The live stream content is segmented into multiple manifest files, each covering a specific time period (e.g., 6-hour segments). These segments overlap in time to ensure continuity, and each segment can be independently generated and managed. This segmentation approach balances playback reliability with manageable system complexity by breaking down the indefinite content into discrete, handleable units
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for live streaming media content using on-demand manifests. Many manifest files providing playback options for different time periods of a live stream of media content can be generated and provided to viewer devices. Requests from viewer devices using the manifest files can be analyzed to determine a fragment to be provided for playback in relation to the time period of the live stream to be provided for playback.