Methods and systems to fast fill media players
View Patent ↗Methods and systems are provided to fast fill media players and buffers associated with media players. A bandwidth associated with initial startup of a media player is overloaded to rapidly fill the buffer and initiate the media player. Alternatively, multiple simultaneous data communication sessions are established with a media data source device, and the media data are concurrently received from the simultaneous sessions into the buffer or transferred of out the buffer at startup, thereby decreasing the latency associated with initiating the media player.
1. A method of customizing an increased bandwidth associated with filling a media buffer, comprising:
detecting a player bandwidth for a media player;
detecting a stream bandwidth for streaming media data to the media player;
establishing a transfer bandwidth to fill a media buffer of the media player, the transfer bandwidth is greater than the player bandwidth and less than or equal to the stream bandwidth;
calculating the transfer bandwidth as a multiple of the player bandwidth, and a minimum transfer bandwidth overrides the transfer bandwidth when the transfer bandwidth exceeds the minimum transfer bandwidth to avoid media player congestion, and the minimum transfer bandwidth defines a bandwidth for a minimum latency;
alleviating congestion from occurring within a media buffer of the media player via the minimum transfer bandwidth to ensure the minimum latency;
using a modified version of a pacing algorithm associated with the media player for processing the transfer bandwidth and wherein a computing device associated with the media player accepts the transfer bandwidth; and
configuring the transfer bandwidth for alleviating congestion problems associated with streaming the media data to the media buffer, the transfer bandwidth is controllable to avoid data congestion during initial media data transfer and the transfer bandwidth is customizable to ensure that media player and a data communication protocol is capable of handling increased data bursts at the transfer bandwidth, and the streaming at the transfer bandwidth achieved by establishing multiple independent, simultaneous, and parallel communication sessions with a media source device having the media data, each communication session having a different portion of the media data, and each session delivers the media data concurrently to the media buffer with the other remaining sessions, a total number of sessions determined by the minimum latency.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting the player bandwidth includes acquiring the player bandwidth from the media player.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting the player bandwidth includes acquiring the player bandwidth by observing prior interactions of the media player for previous plays of other media data.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting the stream bandwidth includes acquiring the stream bandwidth from a media transport connection between the media player and a media source device having the media data.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein establishing includes determining the transfer bandwidth to be an increased multiple of the player bandwidth by dividing the stream bandwidth by the player bandwidth to acquire a factor and multiplying the factor by the player bandwidth to acquire the transfer bandwidth.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising, adjusting the transfer bandwidth by a configurable amount to account for a minimum desired latency associated with the media player.