Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/234—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs
  • H04N21/2343—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements
  • H04N21/234327—Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing of video streams or manipulating encoded video stream scene graphs involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements by decomposing into layers, e.g. base layer and one or more enhancement layers
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/231—Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
  • H04N21/2312—Data placement on disk arrays
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/25—Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies
  • H04N21/266—Channel or content management, e.g. generation and management of keys and entitlement messages in a conditional access system, merging a VOD unicast channel into a multicast channel
  • H04N21/2662—Controlling the complexity of the video stream, e.g. by scaling the resolution or bitrate of the video stream based on the client capabilities
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/40—Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/45—Management operations performed by the client for facilitating the reception of or the interaction with the content or administrating data related to the end-user or to the client device itself, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies, resolving scheduling conflicts
  • H04N21/462—Content or additional data management, e.g. creating a master electronic program guide from data received from the Internet and a Head-end, controlling the complexity of a video stream by scaling the resolution or bit-rate based on the client capabilities

Definitions

• the invention relates to a method and a device for creating a data block for a scalable data stream, as well as to a data block generated according to the method.
• video signals are provided in several quality levels. Examples are:
• Pay-TV and other video services with video signals being provided in better or worse quality, depending on the chosen charging class.
• Such video signals can be stored in a data block, such as a file, according to [1, 2].
• a file organizes the scalable data using meta and media data.
• the media data includes the media data such as the video signals, the metadata describe the media data, the metadata are summarized in so-called tracks.
• the file created on the basis of document [1] is disadvantageous if parts of the media data of a quality level of the scalable data are to be deleted. For example, gaps are created within the file, so that a costly copying of the data elements still contained in the file must be carried out in order to reduce the file volume.
• a file constructed on the basis of the document [1] can store media data redundantly, resulting in no gaps in deleting parts of the media data on the one hand, but on the other hand, the storage volume required for storing the media data is very large.
• the invention relates to a method for generating a data block for a scalable data stream, wherein the data stream comprises first data elements for a first quality level and at least second data elements for a second quality level together with the first data elements, wherein a first sub-block comprising the first data elements, and at least a second sub-block comprising the second data elements generates a first data description for the first quality level, wherein the first data description references the first data elements, generates at least a second data description for the second quality level, the second data description references those data elements belonging to the second quality level; the first and second data description and the first and second sub-blocks stored in the data block, wherein the sub-blocks are stored en bloc in the data block.
• a data block can be created in such a way that the sub-blocks in the data block are stored en bloc, ie in one piece, eg on a hard disk. This ensures that the deletion of individual quality levels, the data elements can be deleted en bloc and thus both a low computational effort for reorganizing the non-deleted sub-blocks in the data block is created.
• each subblock is stored in each case in an MDAT container and / or in each case in a chunk according to the MPEG-4 standard, the method can be implemented and executed with the aid of the MPEG-4 standard.
• reference elements are inserted into at least one of the second subblocks that represents a higher quality level than the first quality level, wherein the respective reference element refers to one of the data elements located in a different subblock than the second subblock and to form the higher quality level is used, and the second data description is generated so that it references the second data elements and the reference elements of the second sub-block.
• the reference elements With the help of the use of the reference elements, a space-efficient representation of the data descriptions with the associated data elements per quality level can be achieved, wherein the deletion of data elements of a quality level can be realized without great computational effort.
• the sub-blocks are organized in an order of increasing quality levels organized at the end of the data block.
• the deletion can be performed, for example, by moving an end display of the data block in front of the sub-block to be deleted. If the data block is stored in several files in such a way that at least the first sub-block is stored in the first file and the at least the second sub-block is stored in the second file, the deletion of a sub-block of a quality level can be achieved by omitting the file belonging to the sub-block , If, in addition, the files are stored on different storage media, access to the individual data elements of the sub-blocks stored in the files can be accelerated.
• a reference is inserted, which includes an index on at least one of those data descriptions that points to at least one identical data element as the second data description. This ensures that when deleting a quality level and the sub-blocks, or their data elements, other quality levels are deleted, which can not be edited due to the deletion of the quality level.
• at least the first data description is inserted with a reference specification that includes an index on at least one of those data descriptions that references at least one of the first data elements of the first subblock. This ensures that all data descriptions or quality levels that can no longer be processed due to the deletion of the quality level are specified in a single reference specification.
• first and / or second data elements are inserted into the already generated data block in the first and / or second sub-block, this makes it possible that the method can also be used if the data elements are generated live, e.g. in a continuous recording, for example, a football game.
• the method can be extended so that the subset associated with a quality level to be deleted block is deleted en bloc from the data block, wherein if the sub-block to be deleted is at the end of the data block, an end of the data block is moved in front of the sub-block to be deleted.
• the subblock belonging to a quality level to be erased is deleted en bloc from the data block, the subblocks remaining to the subblock to be resolved being moved en bloc in the data block such that the gap resulting from the erasure is sent to the end the data block is set and the end of the data block is placed in front of the gap, and references of the data writes belonging to the remaining sub-blocks and / or their reference elements are adapted to a new position of the data elements of the remaining sub-blocks in the data block.
• the partial block belonging to a quality level to be deleted is deleted en bloc from the data block, the gap arising during the deletion being filled either by new data elements of the partial block placed before the gap or by a further partial block.
• the deletion may have been carried out in a slightly complex manner, wherein also the filling of new data elements due to the filling in a single gap can be executed without much computational effort.
• the partial block associated with the quality level to be deleted is preferably removed from the data block and the gap resulting from the partial deletion is filled up by new data elements of the partially deleted partial block.
• the method is used even if a part of one of the quality levels, i. some of the data elements should be deleted and replaced with new data elements of the same quality level.
• those data elements representing the temporally oldest data elements of the sub-block can be removed.
• the data block thus contains the latest data elements for at least one of the
• the invention further comprises an apparatus for generating a data block for a scalable data stream, the data stream comprising first data elements for a first quality level and at least second data elements for a second quality level together with the first data elements, comprising the following means: a) First means for generating a first sub-block (TBI) comprising the first data elements, and at least a second sub-block comprising the second data elements; b) second means for generating a first data description for the first quality level, wherein the first data description references the first data elements; c) third means for generating at least a second data description for the second quality level, wherein the second data description references those data elements belonging to the second quality level; d) Fourth means for storing the first and second data description and the first and second sub-blocks in the Data block, wherein the sub-blocks are stored en bloc in the data block.
• TTI first sub-block
• second sub-block comprising the second data elements
• second means for generating a first data description for the first quality level, where
• the method can be implemented and executed.
• the device has a further means which is suitable for performing at least one of the further method steps.
• further developments of the method can be realized and carried out by the device.
• the invention comprises the data block generated with the method and / or with the device.
• FIG. 1 shows a data block with separate containers for each data description
• FIG. 2 shows a data block with interleaved first and second data elements and reference elements in a container
• FIG. 3 shows a data block in which the data elements in one and reference elements are accommodated in a second container
• FIG. 4 shows a data block created according to the method according to the invention, in which two different quality levels are supported with the aid of two data writes;
• FIG. 5 shows a further data block produced according to the method of the invention, which is produced analogously to the data block of FIG. 4 for three quality levels;
• Figure 6 is a block of data that supports storage of data elements that are scalable in both temporal and spatial directions;
• FIG. 7 shows a data block in which the data description of the highest quality level refers to data elements in the first and in the second data container;
• FIG. 8 shows a data block which has the first data elements in a chunk and the second data elements as well as data blocks which refer to the first data elements in a second chunk of a common container;
• FIG. 9 block of data stored in several files on multiple storage media
• FIG. 10 shows a device for carrying out the method.
• FIGS. 1 to 10 Elements with the same function and mode of operation are provided in FIGS. 1 to 10 with the same reference numerals.
• FIG. 1 shows a structuring according to [1] of a file, hereinafter referred to as data block FF.
• the data block comprises a metadata section MTD, according to [1] an MOOV container, and two media data sections MDD1, MDD2, named in [1] as an MDAT container.
• the metadata section MTD comprises two tracks, which are referred to below as data description TRI, TR2.
• Each of the data descriptions refers in each case to one of the named media data sections MDD1, MDD2, which respectively comprises the multimedia scaled data, referred to as data elements D1, D2.
• Each of the data descriptions represents a quality level Q1, Q2 of the scalable data stream encoded with the data elements D1, D2.
• the second quality level Q2 represents a higher quality than the first quality level of the data stream DS.
• the higher quality described by the second data description TR2 is shown, for example, during playback by more fluid movements in a video sequence. If the higher quality level is to be deleted, this can be done in the data block FF according to FIG. 1 by deleting the MDAT container MDD2.
• the use of the MDAT containers MDD1, MDD2 on the one hand allows easy deletion of unneeded quality levels, but the first data elements D1 are stored both in the MDAT container MDD1 and in the MDAT container MDD2, ie several times. This is inefficient because the data block requires a large storage volume.
• FIG. 2 shows a further data block FF that has been created using the document [1] for storing a scalable data stream.
• the data elements are combined into a Chunk CH within the MDAT container.
• the second data description refers to this
• the first data description TRI refers to the reference elements E, which in turn point to the first data elements Dl within the first MDAT container MDDl. If now the second data elements of the second quality level are to be deleted, then, as already described in FIG. 2, gaps in the first container MDD1 are created by deleting the second data elements D2. In order to reduce the storage volume required by the data block FF, the first data elements within the first container must then be re-sorted. This is very complex as each piece of data has to be moved individually.
• FIG. 4 shows the data block FF, which comprises the first and second data descriptions TRI, TR2 and first and second sub-blocks TB1, TB2.
• the first data description TRI describes the scalable data flow DS in a first quality level Q1
• the second data description TR2 describes the scalable data flow DS in a second quality level Q2.
• the first data description TRI references first data elements D1 in the first sub-block TB1.
• the references are marked with arrows in FIG. 4, wherein a reference, for example, is indicated in the form of a memory address at which the data element to be referenced is located in the data block.
• the first data elements D1 describe, for example, image data in a basic quality, that is to say the first quality level Q1 of the data stream DS.
• the first data elements D1 can be generated with an intra-coding mode.
• the second data description TR2 references second data elements D2 and reference elements E, which are stored organized in the second sub-block TB2.
• a respective reference The second data element D2 comprises additional information which, together with the first data elements D1, improves the quality, that is to say a second quality level Q2, as compared to an exclusive consideration of the first data elements D1 , the data stream DS play.
• the second data elements can be embarrassed with an inter-coding mode.
• the specific coding of the first and / or second data elements will not be discussed in more detail, since methods for generating such first and second data elements for scalable data streams are known to a person skilled in the art.
• the first and second data description and the first and second subblock are stored in the data block such that the subblocks are stored en bloc in the data block.
• the data block if it is stored in a file, for example, the following appearance:
• FF ⁇ TR2, TRI, TB2, TBI ⁇ .
• the data block FF can be constructed in such a way that first the first and second data description, subsequently the first sub-block TB1, which comprises the first data elements D1 for the first quality level Q1, is stored.
• the data block has the following appearance:
• FF ⁇ TR2, TRI, TB1, TB2 ⁇ .
• a new data block can be generated by deleting the second sub-block. Since the respective sub-blocks are structured in such a way that they each comprise only data elements which correspond to a specific data description (TR2, TRI). By deleting a partial block, all the data elements belonging to the quality level to be deleted and, if appropriate, reference elements can be removed en bloc. If, for example, the second subblock to be deleted is a file on a hard disk, then by setting the end of file flag (EOF) to the end of the first subblock, deletion of the second subblock can be realized in a simple manner.
• EEF end of file flag
• the data description describing the quality level to be deleted can also be deleted. If higher quality levels can no longer be displayed without those data elements which are referenced without reference elements by the data description to be deleted, then the data descriptions and / or partial blocks belonging to this quality level can also be deleted.
• a data stream DS comprises first, second and third data elements D 1, D 2, D 3, wherein the first data elements comprise a first quality level Q 1, the first and the second data elements D 1, D 2 together second quality level Q2 and the first, second and third data elements together describe a third quality level Q3.
• the first sub-block TB1 is generated by the first data elements D1.
• the second sub-block TB2 is formed from the second data elements D2 and reference elements E, wherein in each case a reference element refers to a first data element.
• the third sub-block TB3 is created by the third data elements D3 and reference elements E, wherein both reference elements refer to the second data elements D2 and as reference elements to the first data elements Dl.
• the first data description TRI is made by referencing to the first data elements D1, the second data description TR2 by referencing to the second data elements D2 and the reference elements E in the second sub-block TB2 and the third data description TR3 by referencing to the third data elements D3 and the reference elements E generated in the third sub-block TB3.
• REF2 dependencies between the data descriptions or the sub-blocks are specified, which must be taken into account when deleting one of the quality levels. If, for example, the second quality level is to be deleted, then first the second partial block and, if necessary, the second data description are deleted.
• this data description references data elements of the deleted sub-block. This can be detected by the index contained in the reference. If this is the case, then the quality level described by the checked data description are no longer displayed, so that this, ie belonging to it sub-block and, if necessary, the data description belonging to it, also deleted. Furthermore, the checking of the references of the data descriptions which have not been deleted can be continued taking into account the deleted quality levels.
• the reference statement REF1 of the second data description comprises an index that specifies at least the further data description that references data elements of the second subblock.
• REF1 ⁇ TR3 ⁇ .
• the third sub-block TB3 is stored. If the data block FF formed in this way is intended to represent only the first and the second quality level, then the third sub-block TB3 is deleted. If, on the other hand, the data block FF only represents the first quality level, then the two partial blocks TB2 and TB3 inserted at the end of the data block FF are deleted.
• the data description and the associated sub-block in the data block can each be stored in an organized manner (not shown).
• the data block looks like this:
• the first data description is TRI at the beginning of the data block
• the first sub-block TB1 subsequently and Finally, the third sub-block TB3 is at the end of the data block.
• the data description corresponding to the sub-block to be deleted is deleted in addition to the sub-block (s) in this alternative.
• each sub-block TB1, TB2 can each be stored in an MDAT container and / or in each case in a chunk according to a standard MPEG-4 part 12 with a name "ISO base file format".
• the data stream DS comprises first, second, third and fourth data elements D1, D2, D3 and D4, with the aid of which four different ones
• Quality levels Ql, Q2A, Q2B, Q3 of the data stream DS are represented. With the help of these data elements, for example, the following four quality levels are realized:
• QCIF Quarter Common Intermediate Format, i.e. 176x144 pixels
• CIF Common Intermediate Format, 352x288 pixels
• the third quality level Q3 describes a picture sequence of the data stream DS with a resolution of QCIF and 30 frames per second, whereby to reproduce this picture sequence the first and the third data elements Dl, D3 are used.
• Quality Level Q3 In the fourth quality level Q4, an image sequence of the data stream in CIF resolution and 30 images per second is made possible with the aid of the first, second, third and fourth data elements.
• a fourth data description TR4 refers to the fourth data elements and the reference elements E in the fourth sub-block TB4, these reference elements pointing to the first, second and third data elements.
• the third data description TR3 refers to the third data elements and to reference elements which only refer to the first data elements.
• the third quality level Q3 is formed with the aid of the first and third data elements, so that only these data elements have to be referenced by the third data description.
• the Data Description TR2 points to the second data elements and reference elements within the second sub-block, wherein these reference elements reference first data elements.
• the first data description TRI which represents the first quality level Q1, that is to say a basic quality of the data stream, refers only to the first data elements D1.
• REF4 ⁇ .
• the fourth data elements of the fourth data description are not referenced by any other data description by means of reference elements, so that the quantity in REF4 is empty. Instead of specifying the data descriptions, the respective quality level or the respective data block can be specified.
• the first reference REFl is eg:
• the data block FF according to FIG. 7 is formed analogously to the data block according to FIG. 4, but the second sub-block TB2 does not include reference elements E, and the second data description TR2 directly first instead of referencing the reference elements which in turn reference first data elements Dl Data elements Dl referenced.
• a fifth embodiment of the invention is illustrated in more detail with reference to FIG.
• the data block FF according to FIG. 8 is formed analogously to the data block according to FIG. Subsequently, the first sub-block TB1 is filled in a first chunk and the second sub-block TB2 is filled in a second chunk according to [1], and the first and second chunk are inserted one after the other into an MDAT container MDD. The chunks or subblocks must be inserted in the MDAt container.
• the data block FF according to [1] comprises a metadata section MTD, the MOOV container, which includes the data descriptions TRI, TR2 stored in track form according to [1].
• a sixth embodiment will be discussed with reference to FIG. It should be recorded for a monitoring application, a video sequence.
• the video sequence should be available in very good picture quality and then in reduced picture quality.
• faces of recorded persons should be easily recognizable, whereas after that time a recognition of contours of the face of persons is sufficient.
• three files Fl, F2, F3 are created.
• the first file Fl comprises the data descriptions TRI, TR2, the second file F2 the first sub-block TBl and the third file F3 the second sub-block TB2.
• the first data description describes the video sequence in a low quality level Q1, referring only to the first data elements D1 in the first sub-block TB1.
• the second data description TR2 describes the video sequence in the very good picture quality, ie the second quality level Q2, wherein it references the first data elements D1 in the first sub-block and second data elements D2 in the second sub-block. If the video sequence is to be recorded continuously, new first data elements can be appended to the first data block and new second data elements can be appended to the second data block. The respective data descriptions are supplemented so that they reference the new data elements. If the first period has been exceeded, the second quality level can be deleted to reduce the storage volume required for the three files. For this, the third file is deleted and the second data description is removed from the first file. Thus, the solution can take place with little computational effort.
• the files F1, F2 are furthermore stored on respectively different storage means SM1, SM2, a fast access to the first and second data elements in the files F1, F2 can be made possible due to the separate physical storage locations.
• the method according to the invention can be implemented and executed with the aid of a device V.
• the device V can be configured according to FIG.
• the data stream DS which comprises the first and second data elements D1, D2, is supplied to a first means M1.
• This first means in each case generates a first and a second sub-block TB1, TB2 for the respective data elements D1, D2.
• the data elements can be stored in the respective subblock in a game to be stored by a decoder order to be processed.
• the first means passes the first sub-block to a second means M2, which generates the first data description TRI for the first quality level Q1.
• the first data description TRI references the first data elements D1 within the first data block.
• a symbolic indication in the form of a counter can be understood, which indicates which data element of the first data element should be addressed by means of the referencing.
• the referencing describes a memory address within the data block FF, to which the referenced first data element Dl is to be found.
• the first means M1 transmits the second sub-block TB2 to a third means M3, which generates the second data description TR2 for the second quality level Q2.
• the second data description references those first and second data elements which belong to the second quality level and to at least one lower quality level, that is to say the first quality level. If first data elements are referenced by means of reference elements in the second sub-block, then the first means inserts these required reference elements into the second sub-block, and the third means sets the respective references from the second data description to the respective reference elements and the respective ones References from the reference elements to the respective first data elements in the first sub-block.
• the second means transmits the first data description TRI and the first sub-block TB1, and the third means M3 transfers the second data description TR2 and the second sub-block TB2 to a fourth means M4.
• the fourth means creates the data block FF from the transferred sub-blocks and the data descriptions.
• the first and second data descrip- The first and second subblocks are stored in the data block.
• sub-blocks, such as the second sub-block may be added to the end of the data block in the order that sub-blocks with data elements of higher quality levels are attached to data blocks with data elements of lower quality levels.
• the data block can be organized in such a way that the first and the second data description and the first sub-block are stored in a first memory means SM1, eg a first file F1, and the second sub-block TB2 in a second memory means SM2, eg the second file F2 ,
• the device V has been explained on the basis of the first and second data elements with the first and second quality level.
• the device can process more than two data elements or quality levels and generate a data block therefrom.
• additional data elements may be contained in a subblock, which may, for example, specify additional information for the subblock, such as a scene description, and / or, for example, of a multimedia type, e.g. Audio data, are.
• additional data elements e.g. In the first sub-block, a simple readout of all data elements from the first sub-block for a specific time is feasible.
• the device V may be implemented and executed in hardware or processor executable software or in a combination of hardware and software.
• the device V is for example part of a video on demand server.
• the device can also be integrated in a monitoring device, eg for cash dispensers or at petrol stations, a current event being recorded in the form of a picture sequence having at least two quality levels and one or more high quality levels being deleted after a predeterminable first time period for reducing the storage volume.
• the device can be integrated in a terminal, for example a mobile radio terminal, wherein after receiving the data block, which according to According to the present invention, a deletion is made of those sub-blocks which represent quality levels which the terminal does not represent or whose request for a storage volume can not be fulfilled by the terminal.
• the data stream DS can describe any type of multimedia data in scalable form, such as a piece of music, a speech signal, progressively constructed still images, eg according to JPEG, or a scalable scene description of a multimedia scene.
• the scalable data stream may include data elements of different multimedia types.
• the first data elements represent an audio presentation of the data stream DS
• the second data elements indicate video data, so that the second quality level is created from audio and video data.
• This second quality level represents an improved quality of the scalable data stream compared to the first quality level.

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• Information Retrieval, Db Structures And Fs Structures Therefor (AREA)
• Television Signal Processing For Recording (AREA)

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• 2007
  • 2007-03-20 KR KR1020087026356A patent/KR20090009833A/ko not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2007-03-20 CN CNA2007800203057A patent/CN101461243A/zh active Pending
  • 2007-03-20 EP EP07727087A patent/EP2002655A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2007-03-20 WO PCT/EP2007/052610 patent/WO2007113099A1/de active Application Filing

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