Method and system for streaming media data in heterogenous environments

摘要

The present invention discloses a new method and system for streaming media data in a heterogeneous network environment. Additionally to existing standard streaming products, e.g. standard Media Player and Stream Server, a Stream Server Portal which controls a set of Stream Servers is provided by the present invention. The Stream Server Portal offers a service called prepareStreaming to applications which returns the streaming meta data necessary to initiate streaming for given media instances. The use of Stream Server Portal allows to generate streaming meta data necessary to initiate streaming on the fly as part of executing a prepareStreaming request. This completely removes the need to store and maintain said streaming streaming meta data and solves the problems associated with it. Furthermore, Stream Server Portal allows to transfer media data to a stream server machine transparently as part of executing a prepareStreaming request. This removes the constraint of media data to be maintained on the same machine as the stream server software and solves the problems this creates for certain server platforms. The Stream Server Portal can minimize the additional network traffic by maintaining a cache of the media data already transferred. Finally, Stream Server Portal allows to choose among available stream servers (even from different makers) in order to stream a particular media as part of executing a prepareStreaming request. This removes the need for companies to decide for a proprietary stream server software, as the Stream Server Portal shields the application requiring streaming from knowing the specifics about, and from storing and maintaining streaming meta data. A preferred embodiment of the present invention discloses the use of an additional Stream Server Controller when the Stream Server Portal may choose among several Stream Server. <IMAGE>