- Number
- 10489182
- Published
- 2019-11-26
- Filed
- 2017-02-17
- Assignee
- Disney Enterprises, Inc.
- Inventors
- Dellosa; Robert
- CPC
- G06F9/45558; H04L65/611; H04L65/765; H04L65/70
- Verdict
- Set aside virtual slicer appliance, streaming infra
- Source
- Google Patents · FreePatentsOnline
Abstract
The disclosure provides an approach for virtualizing a slicer server. A slicer program running in a virtual machine receives a multicast Internet Protocol (IP) signal, re-encodes the signal to a streaming-friendly format, and pushes the re-encoded signal to a content distribution network that distributes the video signal to clients either live or on demand. In one embodiment, a new virtual machine including the slicer is cloned from a template for each broadcast channel that is created, with the newly-cloned VM being used to process IP signals for the corresponding broadcast channel. In addition, the slicer running in the VM may transmit to the content delivery network a time sequence indicating when content in the re-encoded signal should be streamed for play out, and the time sequence may be based on a time that is synchronized to an external server.
Background
BACKGROUNDField of the Invention(1) Embodiments of the disclosure presented herein relate to broadcast delivery systems and, more specifically, to a slicer program deployed in a virtual machine.Description of the Related Art(2) Traditional on-air broadcast delivery systems rely on hardware-based appliance solutions. For example, a server for providing streaming content of a broadcast channel may consist of two physical rack-mounted server computers, two decklink cards for video capture over serial digital interface (SDI), and two timecode cards. Two physical servers are required per channel so that, if one server goes down, the other can take over.(3) Such traditional physical servers are expensive, not portable, and do not share server or storage architectures. For example, two physical rack-mounted servers can cost $8,000 to $10,000, and this figure doubles when another two physical servers are deployed at a secondary location for disaster recovery purposes. Further, physical servers cannot be easily moved (e.g., from one datacenter to another), limit the broadcast delivery system to particular server hardware, and do not decrease datacenter footprint or energy by taking advantage of a shared server or storage architecture.SUMMARY(4) One embodiment of this disclosure provides a computer-implemented method for uploading content to a content delivery network. The method includes cloning, for a first channel, a first virtual machine (VM) including a slicer program from a prede
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method for uploading content to a content delivery network, comprising: for a first channel, cloning a first virtual machine (VM) including a slicer program from a predefined template, the predefined template including one or more configuration files and a virtual disk which includes an operating system and the slicer program; and executing the first VM, wherein, during the execution of the first VM, the slicer program performs operations including: receiving an internet protocol (IP) signal of a broadcast channel, re-encoding the IP signal of the broadcast channel to a re-encoded signal, and transmitting the re-encoded signal to the content delivery network for distribution to one or more clients.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the received IP signal is a multi-cast stream from a broadcast playout program that converts live or file-based video content into the multi-cast stream.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein re-encoding the IP signal includes re-encoding an MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) format stream into HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) format.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the operations performed by the slicer program further include transmitting, to the content delivery network, a time sequence indicating when content in the re-encoded signal should be streamed for play out.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the time sequence is based on a time obtained by synchronizing to a time source external to a host computer in which the first VM executes.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising, cloning, for a second channel, a second VM including the slicer program from the predefined template.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein: the operations performed by the slicer program further include slicing the IP signal's content into video clips; and the video clips are transmitted to the content delivery network.
8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, responsive to a hardware failure in a host computer in which the first VM executes, migrating the first VM to another host computer.
9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program, which, when executed by a processor performs operations for uploading content to a content delivery network, the operations comprising: for a first channel, cloning a first virtual machine (VM) including a slicer program from a predefined template, the predefined template including one or more configuration files and a virtual disk which includes an operating system and the slicer program; and executing the first VM, wherein, during the execution of the first VM, the slicer program performs steps including: receiving an internet protocol (IP) signal of a broadcast channel, re-encoding the IP signal of the broadcast channel to a re-encoded signal, and transmitting the re-encoded signal to the content delivery network for distribution to one or more clients.
10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the received IP signal is a multi-cast stream from a broadcast playout program that converts live or file-based video content into the multi-cast stream.
11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein re-encoding the IP signal includes re-encoding an MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) format stream into HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) format.
12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the steps performed by the slicer program further include transmitting, to the content delivery network, a time sequence indicating when content in the re-encoded signal should be streamed for play out.
13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the time sequence is based on a time obtained by synchronizing to a time source external to a host computer in which the first VM executes.
14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, the operations further comprising, cloning, for a second channel, a second VM including the slicer program from the predefined template.
15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein: the steps performed by the slicer program further include slicing the IP signal's content into video clips; and the video clips are transmitted to the content delivery network.
16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, the operations further comprising, responsive to a hardware failure in a host computer in which the first VM executes, migrating the first VM to another host computer.
17. A system, comprising: a processor; and a memory, wherein the memory includes a program configured to perform operations for uploading content to a content delivery network, the operations comprising: for a first channel, cloning a first virtual machine (VM) including a slicer program from a predefined template, the predefined template including one or more configuration files and a virtual disk which includes an operating system and the slicer program, and executing the first VM, wherein, during the execution of the first VM, the slicer program performs steps including: receiving an internet protocol (IP) signal of a broadcast channel; re-encoding the IP signal of the broadcast channel to a re-encoded signal; and transmitting the re-encoded signal to the content delivery network for distribution to one or more clients.
18. The system of claim 17, wherein the received IP signal is a multi-cast stream from a broadcast playout program that converts live or file-based video content into the multi-cast stream.
19. The system of claim 17, wherein: the steps performed by the slicer program further include transmitting, to the content delivery network, a time sequence indicating when content in the re-encoded signal should be streamed for play out; and the time sequence is based on a time obtained by synchronizing to a time source external to a host computer in which the first VM executes.
20. The system of claim 17, the operations further comprising, cloning, for a second channel, a second VM including the slicer program from the predefined template.