FAST CHANNEL CHANGE IN A MULTICAST ADAPTIVE BITRATE (MABR) STREAMING NETWORK USING MULTICAST REPEAT SEGMENT BURSTS IN A SHARED PROGRESSIVE ABR DOWNLOAD PIPE

摘要

A system and method for effectuating channel changes in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) streaming network using temporarily borrowed bandwidth from a shared progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe for burst transmitting a requested channel's data. A video management agent is configured to stitch burst-transmitted data with the regular channel stream during the channel change to generate a hybrid stream, which is multicast streamed toward the requesting device. Once the data from the regular channel stream is properly joined, burst transmission ceases and the bandwidth consumed for sending burst-transmitted data is released back to the progressive download ABR pipe.

主权项

1. A method for changing channels in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) communications network, the method comprising:
receiving a channel change (CC) request from a set-top-box (STB) device disposed in a subscriber premises to change to a target service channel provided as a plurality of MABR streams, each MABR stream corresponding to a particular bitrate representation of the target service channel, wherein the subscriber premises includes one or more progressive download ABR client devices; joining the requesting STB device to a multicast ABR stream having a select bitrate representation of the target service channel using a burst retransmit stream of segments corresponding to the select bitrate representation of the target service channel, wherein the burst retransmit stream is provided as an MABR stream of repeated segments of a corresponding segment of the select bitrate representation, the burst retransmit stream being transmitted in a temporary shared fast channel change (FCC) pipe borrowed from a progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion of a subscriber premises bandwidth pipe allocated to the subscriber premises; upon completion of joining the requesting STB device to the target service channel at the select bitrate representation, restoring the temporary shared FCC pipe's bandwidth to the progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion and adjusting the one or more progressive download ABR client devices' bitrates associated with their respective download sessions; and if the select bitrate representation of the target service channel is not at a correct bitrate quality provisioned for the requesting STB device, allocating or reallocating at least a portion of the bandwidth of the subscriber premises bandwidth pipe to ensure that the correct bitrate quality for the target service channel is reached.