A bidirectional media communication channel testing platform includes an HDMI testing device including a video input port and an audio output port; a plurality of media streaming devices, each including a video transmission channel and an audio return channel; and a bidirectional switch including a video path and an audio path. The video path is configured to selectively couple the video input port of the HDMI testing device to a video transmission channel of a selected one of the plurality of media streaming devices, and the audio path is configured to concurrently couple the audio output port of the HDMI testing device to the audio return channel of each of the plurality of media streaming devices, regardless of a switching state of the video path of the bidirectional switch.

A video encoding device (e.g., a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU)) may transmit an encoded frame with a frame sequence number using a transmission protocol. The video encoding device, an application on the video encoding device, and/or a protocol layer on the encoding device may detect a packet loss by receiving an error notification. The packet loss may be detected at the MAC layer. The packet loss may be signaled using spoofed packets, such as a spoofed NACK packet, a spoofed XR packet, or a spoofed ACK packet. A lost packet may be retransmitted at the MAC layer (e.g., by the encoding device or another device on the wireless path). Packet loss detection may be performed in uplink operations and/or downlink operations, and/or may be performed in video gaining applications via the cloud. The video encoding device may generate and send a second encoded frame based on the error notification.

Disclosed herein are techniques for bidirectional communication in a network, such as a cable television (CATV) system, for return band with echo cancellation. The techniques result in a minimum loss of available return bandwidth to facilitate forward out of band (OOB) communication to a client device, e.g., set top box (STB), within the extended return band, such as a return band extended beyond a frequency previously used for OOB communications.

Methods for generating an AV bitstream (e.g., an MPEG-2 transport stream or bitstream segment having adaptive streaming format) such that the AV bitstream includes at least one video I-frame synchronized with at least one audio I-frame, e.g., including by re-authoring at least one video or audio frame (as a re-authored I-frame or a re-authored P-frame). Typically, a segment of content of the AV bitstream which includes the re-authored frame starts with an I-frame and includes at least one subsequent P-frame. Other aspects are methods for adapting such an AV bitstream, audio/video processing units configured to perform any embodiment of the inventive method, and audio/video processing units which include a buffer memory which stores at least one segment of an AV bitstream generated in accordance with any embodiment of the inventive method.

The invention provides a network outage continued playing method of an on-demand video, and an IPTV playing device, wherein the method comprises: connecting a network to acquire a data stream of the video; playing, by a player, the data stream, and obtaining a start playing time of the video; in the case of network outage, obtaining the playing time length of playing the video; when network is connected again, obtaining a time point according to the start playing time and the playing time length; searching for, by the player, according to the time point, and starting to continue to play the video at the display time label of the key frame. The present invention has the beneficial effects of directly performing the breakpoint continued playing of the on-demand video from the network outage time point when the network is connected again.

Generating automatic diagnostics alerts is disclosed. At a first time, a set of quality metrics for a plurality of groups of streaming sessions is computed. An anomaly is identified at least in part by performing anomaly detection using the set of quality metrics and historical information. A cause of the identified anomaly is diagnosed. An alert is generated based at least in part on the diagnosis.

A video service quality assessment method and apparatus, where a monitoring device is configured to: obtain an identifier of a to-be-monitored channel, an identifier of to-be-monitored user equipment, and configuration information of a video service transmission system; obtain a multicast video stream of the to-be-monitored channel based on the identifier of the to-be-monitored channel; obtain a retransmitted video stream based on the identifier of the to-be-monitored channel, the identifier of the to-be-monitored user equipment, and the configuration information of the video service transmission system; determine a to-be-assessed video stream based on the multicast video stream and the retransmitted video stream; parse the to-be-assessed video stream; and obtain an assessment result based on a parsing result and the configuration information of the video service transmission system.

A video service quality assessment method and apparatus are provided to resolve a prior-art problem of relatively low accuracy of an assessment result. A monitoring device obtains an identifier of a to-be-monitored channel, an identifier of to-be-monitored user equipment, and configuration information of a video service transmission system; obtains a multicast video stream of the to-be-monitored channel based on the identifier of the to-be-monitored channel; obtains a retransmitted video stream based on the identifier of the to-be-monitored channel, the identifier of the to-be-monitored user equipment, and the configuration information of the video service transmission system; determines a to-be-assessed video stream based on the multicast video stream and the retransmitted video stream; and parses the to-be-assessed video stream, and obtains an assessment result based on a parsing result and the configuration information of the video service transmission system.

Systems and methods for broadcasting a video stream are disclosed. The systems and methods can receive a video stream from a broadcaster, process the video steam, store the video streaming, and deliver the video stream to a viewer as a live video stream or a video on demand. The viewer may use an access token to access the video stream. The systems and methods may include an error detection mechanism for detecting an interrupt in the video stream. The systems and methods can restore the access token to its original state if an error is detected. The systems and methods can also include one or more link sharing mechanisms for sharing links to a video stream. The shareable links may be associated with share tokens.

A multimedia stream may be abandoned (e.g., terminated) under various contexts. Metadata surrounding the abandonment, such as information regarding multimedia segments shown at or near the time of abandonment, may be stored. A system may detect satisfaction of a condition based at least in part on abandonment metadata associated with an abandoned stream, obtain a set of abandonment metadata sharing a characteristic in common, and determine a cause. Depending on the determined cause, various mitigations may be executedfor example, if abandonment of streams is detected in a specific location at a particular point or period in time, one or more network diagnostics tests may be executed to determine whether there are network connectivity issues for viewers from the specific location.