HTTP-based stream delivery

US11272025B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Akamai Technologies, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Christopher R. Knox · San Diego, US
• Philip A. Lisiecki · Lompoc, US
• James Mutton · Maple Valley, US
• Chuck Bernard · San Francisco, US
• Ashok Lalwani · Foster City, US
• William Law · San Francisco, US
• Thomas Devanneaux · Los Altos, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 1, 2020
• Grant date: Mar 8, 2022
• Expiry date: Dec 1, 2040

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04N21/8456
• WIPO field: Audio-visual technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Stream delivery within a content delivery network (CDN) includes recording the stream using a recording tier, and playing the stream using a player tier. Recording begins when the stream is received in a source format. The stream is then converted into an intermediate format (IF), which comprises a stream manifest, one or more fragment indexes (FI), and a set of IF fragments. A player process begins when a requesting client is associated with a CDN HTTP proxy. In response to receipt at the proxy of a request for the stream, the HTTP proxy retrieves (either from the archive or the data store) the stream manifest and at least one fragment index. Using the fragment index, the IF fragments are retrieved to the HTTP proxy, converted to a target format, and then served in response to the client request. Preferably, fragments are accessed, cached and served by the proxy via HTTP.