Patent Application
20080307105
Telecommunications have significantly improved the ability of people to communicate with each other when a face to face event is impracticable. Live events, such as meetings, allow people in multiple locations to experience the same presentation. During these live events, it is often desirable to record the live event for future asynchronous playback. For example, if a company trains employees in a meeting, it is still possible that some employees cannot make the meeting due to illness, vacation, or urgent business. As a second example, recording the live event may present a business opportunity for the event sponsor, such as by allowing the event sponsor to give away or sell the event recording in the future.
Unfortunately, recording a live event while maintaining the same quality as the live broadcast is problematic. One reason for this is that recording of multimedia media streams has high resource requirements (e.g., memory, processor time, network bandwidth, etc.) associated therewith. These resource requirements are in addition to those requirements needed to perform other functionality associated with the live event. For example, if an attendee's computer is recording the live event, the recording functionality is in addition to the resources need to decode the media streams and present the content to the attendee. In addition, some live events, such as meetings, involve live communications from multiple locations. As a result, the media streams for at least one of the locations is subject to problems associated with network latency, even if the client is connected to a relative high-speed connection.
Furthermore, many solutions to recording live events are tightly coupled to particular types of media streams and/or specific types of hardware. As a result, there is added complexity in developing and maintaining recording solutions. In some cases, it can be nearly impossible to add a highly coupled archiver to an existing media producer. For example, if a third-party telephone solution is used, it can be hard to add the ability to record a telephone conference if the feature was not previously included.
The following presents a simplified summary of the claimed subject matter in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the claimed subject matter. This summary is not an extensive overview of the claimed subject matter. It is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of the claimed subject matter nor delineate the scope of the claimed subject matter. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the claimed subject matter in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
A recorder of live media streams in accordance with embodiments described herein provides for an improved recording of live events. The recorder can record one or more media streams on behalf of content providers. The recorder acts as a passive client running on its own computer. Since that computer does not need to also perform other functionality (e.g., presenting content to live event attendees or distribute media streams as part of the live event) related to the event, it can achieve higher quality audio/video recordings. Furthermore, the computer and network resources needed for real-time recording can be optimized when a machine's primary purpose is real-time recording. For example, the media archiver can be placed in close network proximity to the stream mixer and quality of service for receiving the data packets of the media stream at a higher priority can be controlled. The recorder can be a hosted online service or a service executing locally within a content provider's own network.
In addition, the archiver of live events is decoupled from the exact media stream type or equipment used. Hence, it is possible to use the archiver even when native recording functionality is not available in the audio/visual equipment used for presenting and/or mixing the streams. Thus, for example, a PSTN gateway can be used to record a telephone conversation even when the phone used by the presenter or the telephone conference backend does not offer live recording functionality.
The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative aspects of the claimed subject matter. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the claimed subject matter can be employed and the claimed subject matter is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and distinguishing features of the claimed subject matter will become apparent from the following detailed description of the claimed subject matter when considered in conjunction with the drawings.
The claimed subject matter is now described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the claimed subject matter. It may be evident, however, that the claimed subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate describing the claimed subject matter.
As used in this application, the terms “component,” “module,”“system”, or the like are generally intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a controller and the controller can be a component. One or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers.
Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method, apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosed subject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein is intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer-readable device, carrier, or media. For example, computer readable media can include but are not limited to magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strips . . . ), optical disks (e.g., compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD) . . . smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g. card, stick, key drive . . . ). Additionally it should be appreciated that a carrier wave can be employed to carry computer-readable electronic data such as those used in transmitting and receiving electronic mail or in accessing a network such as the Internet or a local area network (LAN). Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize many modifications may be made to this configuration without departing from the scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.
Moreover, the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any aspect or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs. Rather, use of the word exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete fashion. As used in this application, the term “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than an exclusive “or”. That is, unless specified otherwise, or clear from context, “X employs A or B” is intended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. That is, if X employs A; X employs B; or X employs both A and B, then “X employs A or B” is satisfied under any of the foregoing instances. In addition, the articles “a” and “an” as used in this application and the appended claims should generally be construed to mean “one or more” unless specified otherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form.
As used herein, the term “media stream” refers generally to digital data streams and analog streams that may be converted to a digital stream, such as a phone call on the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that can be converted using a PSTN gateway. Media streams can be of various types, such as audio, visual, and/or data streams. The streams can be encoded using various encoding formats. The media streams can be controlled via various protocols, such as Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) Control Protocol (RTCP), Session Description Protocol SDP, and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). In at least some embodiments, multiple streams of different types are recorded and can be combined together in a post-processing phase before publication.
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The system 100 also includes one or more media producer(s) 104. The media producer(s) 104 can also be hardware and/or software (e.g., threads, processes, computing devices). The media producer 104 can house threads to perform audio and/or video mixing and distribution, for example. In one embodiment, the media producer 104 can be a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). In one embodiment, the media producer is hosted as an online service by the same entity as the media archiver service. One possible communication between an attendee client 102 and a media producer 104 can be in the form of data packets adapted to be transmitted between two or more computer processes. The data packets can include one or more media streams. For example, the attendee client can be a presenter that communicates one or more media streams to the media producer for live broadcast. As another example, the live broadcast of the live event can include one or more media streams from the media producer 104 to one or more attendee clients.
The system 100 also includes a media archiver 108. The media archiver can also be hardware and/or software (e.g., threads, processes, computing devices). In one embodiment, the media archiver 108 acts as a passive client to record the one or more media streams. In one embodiment, the media archiver is placed in close network proximity to the media producer 104. Close network proximity minimizes the latencies and the range of latencies in packet transmission between the media archiver and the media producer. Close network proximity can be determined in various manners, such as by logical network hops (e.g., within 2 virtual network hops), bandwidth (actual and effective) available between the computers, and the ability to maintain small and consistent latencies. Multiple media archivers 108 can be used for a single recording in some embodiments for failover or legal reasons (e.g., copyright laws, or export control laws).
The system 100 also includes an archive presenter 110 that lets a user view the previously recorded event. The archive presenter can also be hardware and/or software (e.g. threads, processes, computing devices). In addition, the archive presenter can perform various post-recording processing, such as mixing the streams together or encoding the recorded streams into an appropriate format for viewing.
The system 100 includes a communication framework 106 (e.g., a global communication network such as the Internet; or the PSTN) that can be employed to facilitate communications between the attendee client(s) 102, media producer(s) 104, media archiver 108, and the archive publisher 110. Communications can be facilitated via a wired (including optical fiber) and/or wireless technology and via a packet-switched or circuit-switched network.
Referring to
As previously discussed the media archiver 108 and archive presenter 110 are connected together by a communication framework 106. The media archiver 108 contains an event controller component 202, a MCU interface component 204, an MCU client component 210, and an archiver component 208. The event controller component 202 controls multiple archiving sessions. For example, the event controller component 202 receives an indication to record an event having one or more media streams (e.g., from a content producer or a remote system) and allocates other components of the media archiver 108 system to record that event.
The MCU interface component 204 is an intermediary between the event controller component 202 and the MCU client component 210 and sets a number of parameters for a particular event. In one embodiment, the MCU interface component 204 receives some or all of the parameters from the content producer while other parameters can be set automatically, such as the location of where to store the raw recorded media streams. The MCU client component 210 maintains a connection to a MCU and can also generate metadata from events. In other embodiments, the MCU client component 210 can be replaced with another type of media client component for recording streams that do not traverse a MCU, such as a telephone conference captured via a PSTN gateway. The archiver component 208 records one or more media streams to a computer-readable storage medium. In one embodiment, the computer-readable storage medium is a remote computer-readable storage medium, such as network attached storage.
The illustrated archive presenter 110 has two components: the post-processing component 212 and the content server 214. In other embodiments, the functions of post-processing component can be performed by a computing system other than the media presenter 110. The post-processing component 212 processes the raw recorded streams and produces output suitable for presentation via the content server. Examples of post-processing can include audio/video encoding/transcoding or mixing audio/video. The content server serves the asynchronous recording of the event. Example content servers include Microsoft IIS, Real Networks Helix server, Apache HTTP server, etc.
In one embodiment, the media archiver is extended to facilitate producing more than one finished recording from a single recording of a live event. Multiple finished recordings are useful when the recordings are intended for different audiences or will be distributed separately. For example, a single meeting can have a public portion and an internal portion before or after the public portion and it can be desirable to produce a finished recording of the entire meeting, as well as just the public portion. In such an embodiment, the MCU client component records a set of metadata for each intended recording. Subsequently, the post-processing component can split up the single live event recording according to the metadata.
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The media stream can also be paused based on an indication (e.g., a CCCP message from the content presenter). At that point, the state is changed to the pausing state 606 and then enters the paused state 608. After receiving an indication to resume recording, the recording enters the resuming state 614 and returns to the recording state 612. If a paused stream is paused for too long (e.g., an hour), it can enter the stopping recording state 616. After the recording has been stopped 620, the recording proceeds to the disposed state 622. An indication can be sent at the stopped state 620, the deleting state 618 or the disposed state 622 so that post-processing by the archiver presenter 110 can be started and/or to allow the reallocation of the media archiver components for recording other live events.
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Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the inventive methods can be practiced with other computer system configurations, including single-processor or multiprocessor computer systems, minicomputers, mainframe computers, as well as personal computers, hand-held computing devices, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, and the like, each of which can be operatively coupled to one or more associated devices.
The illustrated aspects of the invention can be practiced in distributed computing environments where certain tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules can be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
A computer typically includes a variety of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media can comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media can include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the computer.
Communication media typically embodies computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.
With reference again to
The system bus 908 can be any of several types of bus structure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of commercially available bus architectures. The system memory 906 includes read-only memory (ROM) 910 and random access memory (RAM) 912. A basic input/output system (BIOS) is stored in a non-volatile memory 910 such as ROM, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), which BIOS contains the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer 902, such as during start-up. The RAM 912 can also include a high-speed RAM such as static RAM for caching data.
The computer 902 further includes an internal hard disk drive (HDD) 914 (e.g., EIDE, SATA), which internal hard disk drive 914 may also be configured for external use in a suitable chassis (not shown), a magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 916, (e.g., to read from or write to a removable diskette 918) and an optical disk drive 920, (e.g. reading a CD-ROM disk 922 or, to read from or write to other high capacity optical media such as the DVD). The hard disk drive 914, magnetic disk drive 916 and optical disk drive 920 can be connected to the system bus 908 by a hard disk drive interface 924, a magnetic disk drive interface 926 and an optical drive interface 928, respectively. The interface 924 for external drive implementations includes at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1394 interface technologies. Other external drive connection technologies are within contemplation of the subject invention.
The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For the computer 902, the drives and media accommodate the storage of any data in a suitable digital format. Although the description of computer-readable media above refers to a HDD, a remote computers, such as a remote computer(s) 948. The remote computer(s) 948 can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer, portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peer device or other common network node, various media gateways and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the computer 902, although, for purposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 950 is illustrated. The logical connections depicted include wired/wireless connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 952 and/or larger networks, e.g., a wide area network (WAN) 954. Such LAN and WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to a global communications network, e.g. the Internet.
When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 902 is connected to the local network 952 through a wired and/or wireless communication network interface or adapter 956. The adapter 956 may facilitate wired or wireless communication to the LAN 952, which may also include a wireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with the wireless adapter 956.
When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 902 can include a modem 958, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 954, or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 954, such as by way of the Internet. The modem 958, which can be internal or external and a wired or wireless device, is connected to the system bus 908 via the serial port interface 942. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 902, or portions thereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 950. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers can be used.
What has been described above includes examples of the various embodiments. It is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the embodiments, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations are possible. Accordingly, the detailed description is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications, and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
In particular and in regard to the various functions performed by the above described components, devices, circuits, systems and the like, the terms (including a reference to a “means”) used to describe such components are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, to any component which performs the specified function of the described component (e.g. a functional equivalent), even though not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure, which performs the function in the herein illustrated exemplary aspects of the embodiments. In this regard, it will also be recognized that the embodiments includes a system as well as a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the acts and/or events of the various methods.
In addition, while a particular feature may have been disclosed with respect to only one of several implementations, such feature may be combined with one or more other features of the other implementations as may be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “includes,” and “including” and variants thereof are used in either the detailed description or the claims, these terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising.”
