POWER EFFICIENT MULTIMEDIA CONTENT STREAMING BASED ON MEDIA SEGMENT DURATION

摘要

Techniques for influencing power consumption of a client while streaming multimedia content from a server over a network are described. The power consumption is influenced by controlling how many requests are used by the client to receive media segments of the multimedia content from the server. For example, the number of requests is reduced by increasing the durations of the available media segments. Thus, rather than requesting a certain number of media segments each of a particular duration, a lower number of media segments is requested where the requested media segments have longer durations. Although a longer duration generally results in a larger power saving, the length of a requested media segment is balanced against other parameters associated with current conditions of the client, server, and/or network to allow for, for example, adaptive streaming. As such an optimum duration is determined based on different parameters associated with the current conditions.

主权项

1. In a wireless network environment, a method for influencing power consumption of a client streaming multimedia content from a server by determining a media segment duration to control how many hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) requests the client uses to request media segments of the multimedia content, the method comprising:
determining, by the client, a duration for a media segment of the multimedia content based on a context of one or more of: the client, the server, or the wireless network environment; sending, by the client to the server, a HTTP request based on the determined duration; and receiving, by the client from the server, the media segment in response to the HTTP request, the media segment having a length corresponding to the determined duration.