Hospitality media system employing virtual set top boxes

摘要

Methods and apparatus are described for providing digital content to televisions or other devices having media playback capabilities over a network infrastructure using virtual set top boxes (VSTBs).

主权项

1. A hospitality media system for providing video over a network, the system comprising:
one or more servers deployed on the network and configured to manage operation of a plurality of virtual set top boxes (VSTBs) and virtual user interfaces (VUIs); one or more media servers deployed on the network and configured to make available to the VSTBs a plurality of digital video streams via the network; and a plurality of display devices coupled to the network and located in guest rooms of a hospitality establishment; wherein the display devices cannot directly access and playback the digital video streams from the media servers; the one or more servers are configured to receive an alert via the network upon a user activating a display device at a start of a user session; the one or more servers are configured to allocate resources in order to instantiate both a VSTB and a VUI for the display device in response to receiving the alert, the VSTB connecting to the VUI via a first virtual network computing (VNC) connection in order to receive graphical updates representing a graphical user interface as generated by the VUI, the VSTB further combining the graphical user interface with one or more of the digital video streams received from the media servers; the one or more servers are further configured to transmit the combined graphical user interface and the one or more video streams from the VSTB to the display device as a single media stream having a frame format and codec supported by the display device; the one or more servers are further configured to receive user input and provide the user input to the VUI via a second VNC connection, at least some of the user input representing interaction of the user with a representation of the graphical user interface as shown on the display device; the one or more servers are further configured to send updates of the graphical user interface as driven by the user input from the VUI to the VSTB via the first VNC connection; the one or more servers are further configured to change video stream inputs to the VSTB such that the VSTB combines the graphical user interface with a different one or more of the digital video streams selected according to actions of the user interacting with the graphical user interface provided by the VUI; and the one or more servers are further configured to release the resources allocated for the VSTB and VUI when the user session is complete.