A method and apparatus for client-side detection of network congestion in a best-effort packet network comprising streaming media traffic is disclosed. Said method and apparatus provide for quality streaming media services in a congested network with constrained bandwidth over the last-mile link. A client media buffer detects at least one level of congestion and signals a server to enact at least one error mechanism. Preferred error mechanisms include packet retransmissions, stream prioritization, stream acceleration, changes in media compression rate, and changes in media resolution. Said method and apparatus allow distributed management of network congestion for networks comprising multiple clients and carrying significant streaming media traffic.

Flow control method for quality streaming of audio/video/media over packet networks

A protocol for detecting faults in a bidirectional path between two forwarding engines, where parts of the bidirectional path checked may include interfaces, one or more data links, and to the extent possible the forwarding engines themselves, with potentially very low latency. The protocol may operate independently of media, data protocols, and routing protocols.

Bidirectional forwarding detection

A mutual recognition process is performed in step S1. When it is determined in step S2 that a request for sending a list of musical pieces has been received, the list of musical pieces is sent in step S3. When a request for sending audio data has been received in step 54; a transfer-rate measurement process is executed in step S5. When it is determined according to the transfer rate in step S6 that the audio can be transmitted, the corresponding compressed audio data is extracted in step 57, the compressed audio data is decoded to generate linear PCM data suited to the transfer rate in step S8, and transmitted in step S9. When the audio data cannot be transmitted, an error message is transmitted in step S10. The present invention can be applied, for example, to a server for distributing audio data and an audio player terminal for reproducing the distributed audio data.

Data stream-distribution system and method therefor

A network-based video encoding and decoding system encodes and decodes remotely displayed user application data on a centralized desktop computer. Remotely displayed user application data are screen captures of a browsing application run by the centralized desktop computer on user's behalf. The encoding system optimizes its encoding performance using back channel information which includes real time network capacity information and decoder feedback. The encoding system consults a back channel information manager to dynamically adjust encoding parameters. Based on the real time network capacity information received, the encoding system adjusts its capturing sampling rate. Based on encoding errors identified by the decoding system, the encoding system selectively re-send previously encoded frames/blocks, or send intra frames on demand to allow the decoding system to correct encoding errors. In response to encoding customization requests from the decoding system, the encoding system adjusts its encoding parameters to meet such requests.

Network-based dynamic encoding

A method and apparatus for dynamic data rate adjustment of a wireless transport channel include processing that begins with one of a plurality of client modules within a wireless multimedia system monitors channel characteristics of a wireless transport channel. The monitoring is done at or below a received packet rate to determine variations in the channel characteristics on a packet-by-packet basis or on a group-of-packets by group-of packets basis. The processing continues when the client module determines whether the variations in the channel characteristics affect the data rate of data contained in the packets received via the wireless transport channel. When the variations in the channel characteristics affect the data rate, the client module provides data rate adjustment feedback to a multimedia server of the wireless multimedia system via the wireless transport channel. The processing continues when the multimedia server adjusts the data rate of the data contained in the packets being transported via the wireless transport channel in accordance with the data rate adjustment feedback.

Dynamically adjusting data rate of wireless communications

The invention provides a method for a multimedia server to dynamically adjust the data rate that is streamed over an error-prone bandwidth-varying wireless network to a mobile multimedia client in a client-server architecture. The method enables multimedia applications to efficiently utilize the available (yet time-varying) wireless channel bandwidth and helps prevent interruption in the streaming due to client buffer underflow and packet loss due to network buffer overflow, hence significantly improving the multimedia streaming performance.

Yuqi Yao

Papers

Method of dynamically determining real-time multimedia streaming rate over a communications networks