Managing access to digital content sources

摘要

Access to content may be enabled by receiving an instruction indicating a client request to access content, accessing a list of content sources capable of rendering the content for which access is requested by the client, determining a performance metric for at least two of the content sources, and selecting among the content sources based on the performance metric to identify a content source to be accessed by the client.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for a client to acquire content, the method comprising the following operations performed by at least one processor:
receiving, by the client, a set of sources that host the content; sending, by the client, a request for the content to each of the sources; receiving, by the client, a response to the request for the content from each of the sources; establishing the source with the shortest response time, based on the received response, as a primary source of the content for the client; playing back, by the client, the content over a connection between the client and the primary source; establishing, from the set of sources, a secondary set of sources of the content for the client; maintaining, by the client, one or more connections between the client and one or more of the secondary set of sources while the content is played back; receiving, by the client, identical portions of the content from the primary source over the connection with the primary source and from the one or more of the secondary set of sources over the one or more maintained connections; determining, by the client, one or more performance metrics for the primary source and the secondary sources based on the received identical portions of the content; and selecting, by the client, a new primary source based on the performance metrics.