Patent Application
20160086632
Digital video can acquire defects in the process of being decoded and displayed to a viewer. This is particularly true when the encoded video is transmitted to the viewer over a network. To be properly viewable, digital video transmitted over a network must ordinarily be transmitted with low delay and a high data rate. Typically, a video stream is encoded and encapsulated in Real Time Protocol (RTP) packets. These packets are commonly transported within the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Unlike Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), UDP does not provide any retransmission control mechanisms; thus, when video packets are dropped they cannot be recovered. Retransmission, however, can cause unacceptable delays.
Dropped video packets, or corruptions within a packet, can cause defects sufficient to be perceived by a human viewer, who may deem such defects unacceptable. The viewer may desire to contact the content provider to inform the content provider of the defects in the video, and possibly to seek a remedy. The nature of viewable defects is subjective, however, and the viewer may not be able to adequately describe what she is seeing. The content provider would be able to understand and diagnose the defect more easily when the content provider has access to the defective video that the viewer is concerned about.
In one embodiment, a method for storing a video segment for analysis is provided. The method comprises receiving, by a digital video player, a digital video; detecting, by the digital video player, a defect in the digital video; and storing, by the digital video player, a segment of the digital video that contains the defect.
In another embodiment a system for storing a video segment for analysis is provide. The system comprises a digital video player. The digital video player comprising a receiver, a decoder coupled to the receiver, and a memory coupled to the decoder. The digital video player is configured to: receive by the receiver a video divided into segments; detect by the decoder a defect in a video segment; and store by the memory the video segment containing the defect. The digital video player optionally comprises a transmitter.
In another embodiment, an apparatus implementing a method for storing a video segment for analysis is provided. The method comprises receiving, by a digital video player, a digital video; detecting, by the digital video player, a defect in the digital video; and storing, by the digital video player, a segment of the digital video that contains the defect.
The novel features of the embodiments described herein are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The embodiments, however, both as to organization arid methods of operation may be better understood by reference to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings as follows:
Digital video is typically encoded from raw video, where the encoding process typically produces a compressed digital video file that is much smaller in physical size than the original raw video. A number of video codecs for encoding and decoding video exist, such as for example Alpary, Animation (qtrle), ArithYuv, AVIzlib, CamStudio GZIP/LZO, Dirac lossless, FastCodec, FFV1, H.264 lossless, Huffyuv (or HuffYUV), JPEG 2000 lossless, Lagarith, LOCO, LZO, MSU Lossless Video Codec, PNG, ScreenPressor, SheerVideo, Snow lossless, TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC), Ut Video, VMNC, YULS, ZMBV (Zip Motion Block Video) Codec, ZRLE used by VNC, Blackmagic codec, Apple Intermediate Codec, Audio Video Standard (AVS), Bink Video, Blackbird FORscene video codec, Cinepak, Dirac, Firebird, H.261 MPEG-1 Part 2 (MPEG-1 Video), H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 (MPEG-2 Video), H.263, MPEG-4 Part 2 (MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile), H.264/MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10 (MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding), HEVC, Indeo 3/4/5, OMS Video, On2 Technologies (TrueMotion VP3/VP4, VP5, VP6, VP7, VP8; or TrueMotion S, TrueMotion 2), Pixlet, RealVideo, Snow Wavelet Codec, Sorenson Video, Sorenson Spark, Tarkin, Theora, VC-1 (SMPTE standard, subset of Windows Media Video), VP9 by Google, Windows Media Video (WMV), MJPEG, JPEG 2000 intra frame video codec, Apple ProRes 422/4444, AVC-Intra, DV, VC-2 SMPTE standard (a.k.a. Dirac Pro), VC-3 SMPTE standard, GoPro CineForm, REDCODE RAW, and Grass Valley Codec.
Because digital video is typically compressed, a large amount of digital video data can be stored and/or transported over a network. Digital video storage media include, for example, compact disks formatted for Blue-Ray(TM), DVD, or CD data, video cassette tapes, and digital files stored in computer-readable memory present in a general purpose computer, a gaming console, a handheld device such as a video player, PDA, or smartphone, or a remote server.
To be viewed, the encoded digital video is decoded by a digital video player.
In transmitting digital video over a network 102 and/or in decoding the digital video, the decoded video can acquire defects. These defects may not be correctable, either because data has been lost or the decoder has lost synchronization with the video stream, the decoder 108 must discard data in order to recover from the defect, or any combination of these reasons. A single defect or an accumulation of defects may be visible to a human viewer. The defects may affect all or part of the viewable image on the display 110, and can manifest, for example, as pixilation, blockiness, blurriness, noise, and/or other visual distortions, or jerkiness, jumping, freezing, and/or other motion distortions.
A person viewing the video on the display 110 may wish to notify the content provider when the digital video she is viewing shows visible defects. Alternatively or additionally, the video content provider may want to be informed when the video shows defects, so that the content provider can understand and possibly prevent the defects.
A digital video player 100 may be operable to detect that a visible defect has occurred. Upon detecting a defect, the digital video player 100 may be operable to save the segment of the video that contained the defect. The digital video player 100 may be operable to detect the defect automatically. Alternatively or additionally, the viewer may inform the digital video player 100 that she has seen a defect, such as for instance by pushing a button on a remote control in communication with the digital video player 100, or typing commands into a computer or smartphone. The defective video segment may, for example, include several seconds and/or segments-worth of frames before the defective frames and/or several segments-worth of frames after the defective frames. The video segment may be taken from the encoded video stream and/or the decoded video stream. The defective video segment may be saved in a specially designated area in the memory or hard drive of the digital video recorder. The specially designated area may be accessible to the viewer and/or to the content provider by way of a remote connect to the digital video player 100. The specially designated area may additionally or alternatively be secure, such that the area can only be accessed by designated entities or persons, and/or is protected by a password and/or standard encryption method. The digital video player 100 may automatically inform the content provider that a defective video segment has been stored in a computer-readable medium, such as a memory 112 or other digital storage device, for example. Alternatively, or additionally, the digital video player 100 may comprise a transmitter 114 configured to transmit or automatically transmit the defective video segment to the content provider.
A number of methods exist for a digital video recorder to automatically detect that a video has displayed defects. For example, some digital video recorders are able to detect that video data has been lost. As another example, UDP packets contain two Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) bytes allowing detection of errors within the packet. When the CRC fails the packet will usually be discarded. As another example, UDP datagrams may be provided with a 16-bit checksum. As another example, some decoders 108 are able to do basic symbol checking and determine that the decoding process has or will lose synchronization with the incoming data stream. Other methods exist, and the embodiments herein are not limited in this context.
Certain embodiments will now be described to provide an overall understanding of the principles of the structure, function, manufacture, and use of the devices and methods disclosed herein. One or more examples of these embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the devices and methods specifically described herein and illustrated in the accompanying drawings are non-limiting exemplary embodiments. The features illustrated or described in connection with one exemplary embodiment may be combined with the features of other embodiments. Such modifications and variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure.
Reference throughout the specification to “various embodiments,” “some embodiments,” “one embodiment,” or “an embodiment”, or the like, means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in various embodiments,” “in some embodiments,” “in one embodiment”, or “in an embodiment”, or the like, in places throughout the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. Thus, the particular features, structures, or characteristics illustrated or described in connection with one embodiment may be combined, in whole or in part, with the features structures, or characteristics of one or more other embodiments without limitation. Such modifications and variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure.
It is understood that the above described embodiments are given as examples and not limitations. One skilled in the art will recognized that any and all of the above described embodiments may be combined in a number of different ways.
While various details have been set forth in the foregoing description, it will be appreciated that the various aspects of the systems and methods for automated capture of impaired video may be practiced without these specific details. For example, for conciseness and clarity selected aspects have been shown in block diagram form rather than in detail. Some portions of the detailed descriptions provided herein may be presented in terms of instructions that operate on data that is stored in a computer memory. Such descriptions and representations are used by those skilled in the art to describe and convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In general, an algorithm refers to a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result, where a “step” refers to a manipulation of physical quantities which may, though need not necessarily, take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It is common usage to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. These and similar terms may be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities.
Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the foregoing discussion, it is appreciated that, throughout the foregoing description, discussions using terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
It is worthy to note that any reference to “one aspect,” “an aspect,” “one embodiment,” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the aspect is included in at least one aspect. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one aspect,” “in an aspect,” “in one embodiment,” or “in an embodiment” in various places throughout the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same aspect. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more aspects.
Although various embodiments have been described herein, many modifications, variations, substitutions, changes, and equivalents to those embodiments may be implemented and will occur to those skilled in the art. Also, where materials are disclosed for certain components, other materials may be used. It is therefore to be understood that the foregoing description and the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and variations as falling within the scope of the disclosed embodiments. The following claims are intended to cover all such modification and variations.
Some or all of the embodiments described herein may generally comprise technologies for various aspects of the systems and methods for automated capture of impaired video, or otherwise according to technologies described herein, In a general sense, those skilled in the art will recognize that the various aspects described herein which can be implemented, individually, and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof can be viewed as being composed of various types of “electrical circuitry,” Consequently, as used herein “electrical circuitry” includes, but is not limited to, electrical circuitry having at least one discrete electrical circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one integrated circuit, electrical circuitry having at least one application specific integrated circuit, electrical circuitry forming a general purpose computing device configured by a computer program (e.g., a general purpose computer configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein, or a microprocessor configured by a computer program which at least partially carries out processes and/or devices described herein), electrical circuitry forming a memory device (e.g., forms of random access memory), and/or electrical circuitry forming a communications device (e.g., a modern, communications switch, or optical-electrical equipment). Those having skill in the art will recognize that the subject matter described herein may be implemented in an analog or digital fashion or some combination thereof.
The foregoing detailed description has set forth various embodiments of the devices and/or processes via the use of block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples. Insofar as such block diagrams, flowcharts, and/or examples contain one or more functions and/or operations, it will be understood by those within the art that each function and/or operation within such block diagrams, flowcharts, or examples can be implemented, individually and/or collectively, by a wide range of hardware, software, firmware, or virtually any combination thereof. In one embodiment, several portions of the subject matter described herein may be implemented via Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), digital signal processors (DSPs), or other integrated formats. Those skilled in the art will recognize, however, that some aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, in whole or in part, can be equivalently implemented in integrated circuits, as one or more computer programs running on one or more computers (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more computer systems), as one or more programs running on one or more processors (e.g., as one or more programs running on one or more microprocessors), as firmware, or as virtually any combination thereof, and that designing the circuitry and/or writing the code for the software and or firmware would be well within the skill of one of skill in the art in light of this disclosure. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the mechanisms of the subject matter described herein are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that an illustrative embodiment of the subject matter described herein applies regardless of the particular type of signal bearing medium used to actually carry out the distribution. Examples of a signal bearing medium include, but are not limited to, the following: a recordable type medium such as a floppy disk, a hard disk drive, a Compact Disc (CD), a Digital Video Disk (DVD), a digital tape, a computer memory, etc.; and a transmission type medium such as a digital and/or an analog communication medium (e.g., a fiber optic cable, a waveguide, a wired communications link, a wireless communication link (e.g., transmitter, receiver, transmission logic, reception logic, etc.), etc.).
Although various embodiments have been described herein, many modifications, variations, substitutions, changes, and equivalents to those embodiments may be implemented and will occur to those skilled in the art. Also, where materials are disclosed for certain components, other materials may be used. It is therefore to be understood that the foregoing description and the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and variations as falling within the scope of the disclosed embodiments. The following claims are intended to cover all such modification and variations.
