Method for enabling use of HLS as a common intermediate format

摘要

In one embodiment a method, system, and apparatus is described for providing multimedia content from a server to a plurality of media devices, the method including providing a computing device an HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) playlist for playing in an adaptive bitrate client, the playlist including a list of at least two segments, each of the segments having an associated duration field, for each segment in the playlist, assigning a timestamp which is equal to the sum the durations of each previous segment in the playlist, calculating a calculated duration of the playlist by subtracting a time stamp of the first segment in the playlist from the time stamp of the last segment in the playlist, determining a real duration of the playlist by subtracting a first presentation time stamp (PTS) of the first segment in the playlist from the last presentation time stamp (PTS) of the last segment in the playlist, computing a playlist drift by subtracting the calculated duration of the playlist from the real duration of the playlist, determining a correction factor by dividing the playlist drift by the number of segments in the playlist, and calculating a new timestamp for each segment in the playlist by adding the correction factor to the time stamp of the segment. Related methods, systems, and apparatus are also described.

主权项

1. A method, implemented in a server, for reducing bandwidth and cache usage when providing multimedia content from the server to a plurality of media devices, the method comprising:
receiving a request from an adaptive bitrate (ABR) client comprised in one of said plurality of media devices, for a playlist, the request being for a playlist in a non-HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) format; providing a computing device in said server an HLS playlist for playing in an adaptive bitrate client, the playlist comprising a list of at least two segments, each of the segments having an associated duration field; adapting the HLS playlist to a playlist in the requested non-HLS format by performing the following: for each segment in the playlist, assigning a timestamp which is equal to the sum the durations of each previous segment in the playlist; calculating a calculated duration of the playlist by subtracting a time stamp of the first segment in the playlist from the time stamp of the last segment in the playlist; determining a real duration of the playlist by subtracting a first presentation time stamp (PTS) of the first segment in the playlist from the last presentation time stamp (PTS) of the last segment in the playlist; computing a playlist drift by subtracting the calculated duration of the playlist from the real duration of the playlist; determining a correction factor by dividing the playlist drift by the number of segments in the playlist; for each segment in the playlist, calculating a new timestamp by adding the correction factor to the time stamp of the segment; generating an adapted non-HLS playlist using the segments with the new timestamps; sending the adapted non-HLS playlist to the requesting ABR client; and generating a non-HLS playlist using the segments with the new timestamps.