A media server for an on-board entertainment system comprising terminals, the server comprising: a memory for storing media content; a distribution module configured to distribute stored media content to terminals; a controller for controlling the storage of media content in the storage module; wherein the controller is configured to collect the numbers of accesses via the terminals to the media content, to calculate the value of a retention parameter relating to each item of media content as a function of said number of accesses, and to automatically trigger the continued retention of said media content in the memory or its deletion as a function of at least said calculated value.

Various arrangements of a local cloud system for providing television services are presented. A facility cloud host system may have a content service provider interface that is used to receive live television channel streams from a television content service provider. The local cloud system may have a transcoder that transcodes the live television channels into a format to be transmitted locally to client devices. The local cloud system may provide access to recorded content from a remote master cloud host.

Traditional streaming sequentially downloads content fragments one by one from one CDN. The disclosed streaming method concurrently downloads content fragments from multiple CDNs. It first creates a sequence of bundles of fragments, and then downloads a subsequent bundle by spreading requests to download the fragments within the bundle to multiple CDNs simultaneously with each CDN acting as a channel to download a different fragment. Depending on business needs, various request dispatching strategies can be deployed. When there is a volume based pricing contract with a CDN, a dispatch strategy is to send more requests to the CDN in order to reach contract volume therefore reduce unit cost. Another strategy is to send the request for the earliest fragment to the fastest CDN in order to reduce latency and possibility of buffer underrun. Fault tolerance can be provided by re-routing a request failed at a CDN to another CDN.

A computer-implemented system is provided that includes instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations for transporting data over content delivery networks, the operations comprising: segmenting a data stream into a plurality of segments, where a segment may include at least one packet; generating a manifest file containing information associated with one or more segments in the plurality of segments, receiving a request for the manifest file, transmitting the manifest file to a receiver through a content delivery network, receiving a request for a segment in the manifest file, and transmitting the requested segment to the receiver through the content delivery network.

The present invention provides a processing system and method for live video streaming based on network coding and content distribution network, applied in video streaming over a network. The processing system comprises a live broadcast source station, at least one edge server and a plurality of player nodes. The live broadcast source station generates a streaming video file and sends to the edge server, at which network coding is performed to output coded information to the player node. The data amount received by each of the player nodes is less than the original streaming file. The player nodes exchange the coded information with each other. A decoding process is performed when a player node accumulates enough coded information. If a player node cannot accumulate enough coded information, more coded information will be requested from the edge server until the streaming video file is decodable.

Systems and methods are described to enable delivery of streaming content while inhibiting or preventing removal, blocking, or skipping of portions within that streaming content. A content delivery system can generate a manifest indicating content portions that form the streaming content. Each content portion can be identified in the manifest using a concealed identifier, which conceals the actual identifier of the content portion from the client to inhibit or prevent the client from automatically removing or modifying the content portion. On receiving a request for a content portion, the content delivery system can convert the concealed identifier into the actual identifier, and return the appropriate content portion to the client. In some instances, the specific identifiers included within a concealed manifest may be modified or adapted based on monitoring information of the client device, to ensure clients view given portions of streaming content.

Apparatuses and methods for data traffic management in multi-source content delivery are described. The apparatus includes a downloader and a controller. The downloader is coupled to servers via communication links. The controller is configured to determine initial download requests for the servers based on predetermined information about a quality of the links. The controller is also configured to send the initial download requests to the servers with the downloader. The controller is further configured to update the information about the quality of the communication links after the downloader receives data associated with a data file from the servers via the communication links. The controller is also configured to determine subsequent download requests for the servers based on the updated information about the quality of the communication links. The controller of further configured to send the subsequent download requests to the servers via the downloader. Rate adaptation is also proposed for each server, and download termination requests are transmitted to the servers when the download is almost complete at the apparatus.

A method for providing to a user terminal a target multimedia content belonging to a first set of multimedia contents available at a master server is disclosed. The method includes, performed by a processing unit of a slave server connected to both the user terminal and the master server through a network, synchronizing (a) the slave server with the master server so that each multimedia content of the first set of multimedia contents available at a master server is also available at the slave server; and providing (b) the target multimedia content to the user terminal from the slave server.

A digital content recording network controller device determines a first content of a set of content to be more likely to be requested by a user of a content access device than a second content of the set of content based on monitored behavior of the user. The device stores the first content in a first storage device of a tiered group of storage devices and stores the second content in a second storage device of the tiered group of storage devices wherein the content access device is located closer to the first storage device than the second storage device. This balances storage load with accessibility, resulting in a faster responding system that does not require as much storage.

An integrated intelligent server based system includes at least one autonomous system containing one or more analytical server for unified multiple sensory data mapped multi-modal or multi-sensory imagery analysis, generating analysis result and streaming of the sensory data with the generated analysis result to the receiver module. A fail safe and fault tolerant technique to generate, store and stream the multi-sensory images to the receiver module is also proposed. Once received, the receiver module extracts the sensory data and the results of the sensory data analysis from the image and video using a suitable decoder. The integrated intelligent server based system would enable embedding the results of the sensory data analysis within the image itself and streaming the multi-sensory image embedded with the results of said sensory data analysis to a receiver module. This results in adopting this new concept in Internet of Things scheme of activities as well.