System and method for piecewise streaming of video using a dedicated overlay network
View Patent ↗The main challenge in providing video on demand service is to meet the quality of service requirements under the conditions when both server and network are loaded. Disclosed is a system and method for meeting this challenge by using a streaming overlay network with edge and core nodes, by the determination of best possible path for bulk copying of a video data based on location information of the nodes thereby distributing load across the network, by the simultaneous frame streaming and bulk copying of a video data, by the caching of a video data in the overlay network, and by the streaming of the video data to a client from an edge node that is close to the client.
1. A piecewise video streaming system for maximizing the utilization of network resources of a network with a plurality of nodes comprising a plurality of edge nodes and a plurality of core nodes to meet quality of service requirements under loaded conditions of said network, said piecewise video streaming system comprising a method for streaming a video file from a source edge node of said plurality of edge nodes to a target edge node of said plurality of edge nodes via a plurality of intermediate core nodes of said plurality of core nodes by simultaneous frame streaming and bulk copying of video data associated with said video file through (a) said source edge node streaming a portion of said video file to said target edge node (STREAMING); (b) said source edge node copying a portion of said video file to said target edge node (COPYING); (c) said source edge node determining a plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes of said plurality of core nodes and copying a portion of said video file to each of said plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes (BULK-COPYING); and (d) each of said plurality of piecewise maximal nodes repeating simultaneous frame streaming and bulk copying of associated video data of said video file.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises means for determining the location of each of the said plurality of nodes of said network, wherein said determining is based on geographical location of each of said plurality of nodes.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein said method further comprises means for determining a near piecewise maximal node of said plurality of core nodes for a node of said plurality of nodes, wherein said determining comprises: determining of a target straight line from said node to said target edge node; determining a plurality of neighboring nodes that are close to said target straight line; determining a plurality of sub-paths from said node to each of said plurality of neighboring nodes having as much available bandwidth as possible; ordering of said plurality of sub-paths based on closeness to said straight line and available bandwidth; selecting a best possible sub-path from said plurality of sub-paths; and selecting the end node of said best possible sub-path as said near piecewise maximal node.
4. The system of claim 3 , wherein said method further comprises means for piecewise streaming of said video file from said source edge node to said target edge node, wherein said piecewise streaming from said source edge node comprises: determining a plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes; starting stream copying of a portion of said video file from said source edge node to said target edge node; starting copying of a portion of said video file from said source edge node to each of said plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes; and computing and communicating expected time of streaming information to each of said plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein said method further comprises means for stream copying a portion of said video file from a node of said plurality of nodes, wherein said stream copying comprises: starting streaming of a stream portion of said portion of video file from said node to said target edge node; copying a portion of said portion of said video file from said node to said target edge node; and handing off streaming to said target edge node after streaming of a pre-computed number of frames of said stream portion of said portion of said video file.
6. The system of claim 4 , wherein said method further comprises means for piecewise streaming from a near piecewise maximal node of said plurality of core nodes to said target node, wherein said piecewise streaming from said near piecewise maximal node comprises: receiving a portion of said video file from a node of said plurality of nodes, wherein said node is either a near piecewise maximal node of said network or said source edge node; receiving of expected time of streaming; locating of a plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes; starting of copying of a portion of said portion of said video file to each said plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes; computing and communicating of expected time of streaming information to each of said plurality of near piecewise maximal nodes; and starting of stream copying on demand.