Patent · US Active

Parallel streaming

US8386621B2 · kind B2 · utility

116Cited by

2References

21Claims

0Family size

Assignee

Netflix, Inc. · US

Inventors

Anthony Neal Park · San Jose, US
Neil D. Hunt · Los Altos, US
Wei Wei · Beijing, CN

Key dates

Filing date	Mar 12, 2010
Grant date	Feb 26, 2013
Priority date	—
Expiry date	Aug 6, 2030

Classification

Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
CPC primaryH04L65/60
WIPO fieldDigital communication
WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention set forth techniques for a content player to stream a media file using multiple network connections. To stream the media file, the content player downloads metadata associated with a requested media file, establishes a network connection with multiple content servers (or multiple network connections with a single content server or both) and begins requesting portions of the media file. In response, the requested portions are transmitted to the content player. The content player may employ a predictive multi-connection scheduling approach to determine which network connection to use in downloading a given chunk.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.