WO2013071517A1 - Media stream sending method and server - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a media stream sending method and a server. A server according to an embodiment of the present invention determines, according to a media stream having a preset transmission bit rate and sent to a client, the bandwidth used by a terminal where the client is located, and determines, according to the determined bandwidth, a transmission bit rate corresponding to the bandwidth, so as to solve the problem of the deteriorated streaming media service quality of the client and the problem of the waste of network resources incurred by inconsistency between the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located and the fixed bit rate in the prior art, thereby improving the streaming media service quality of the client and saving the network resources. Further, the media stream sending method provided by the embodiment of the present invention does not need the involvement of the client, so that the client is not required to undergo update or modification, thereby improving the adaptability of the client. No extra packet between the client and the server is required to be added, so as to avoid extra bandwidth overhead, thereby improving the performance of the server.

Description

 The present invention relates to communication technologies, and in particular, to a method and a server for transmitting a media stream. Background technique

 Streaming media refers to media that distributes audio and video multimedia content in real time on the Internet in the form of data streams, while streaming media technology is a technology for distributing multimedia data streams (media streams) over IP networks. In the prior art, the media stream is usually sent to the client at a preset fixed code rate, so that the client can obtain a media stream with a fixed bit rate and perform streaming media services.

 However, because the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located varies widely, if the fixed bit rate is greater than the access bandwidth, the video card and the mosaic may occur on the client, which affects the quality of the streaming media service of the client. If the fixed bit rate is less than the access rate. Bandwidth, which can lead to waste of network resources; even if the client uses the same access bandwidth, the bandwidth of the client/front-end device to the media distribution unit changes with time, and if the bandwidth becomes smaller, the client can be caused. Video card, mosaic and other phenomena appear, which affects the quality of the streaming media service of the client. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a method and a server for transmitting a media stream, which are used to solve the problem of reducing the quality of streaming media services of a client and the network resources caused by the inconsistency between the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located and the fixed bit rate. The problem of wasting.

 In one aspect, a method for sending a media stream is provided, including:

 The server determines the bandwidth used by the terminal of the client according to the media stream sent to the client with the preset transmission code rate;

 Determining, by the server, a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth according to the bandwidth;

 The server transmits a media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client.

 Another aspect provides a server, including:

a bandwidth determining unit, configured to determine, according to the media stream that is sent by the server to the client and has a preset transmission code rate, a bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located; a code rate determining unit, configured to determine, according to the bandwidth determined by the bandwidth determining unit, a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth;

 And a code rate adjusting unit, configured to send, to the client, a media stream having a transmission code rate determined by the code rate determining unit.

 According to the foregoing technical solution, the server in the embodiment of the present invention determines the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located according to the media stream that is sent to the client and has a preset transmission code rate, and determines, according to the determined bandwidth, the bandwidth corresponding to the bandwidth. The transmission code rate can solve the problem that the quality of the streaming media service of the client is reduced and the network resource is wasted due to the inconsistency between the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located and the fixed code rate, and the quality of the streaming media service of the client is improved. , saving network resources. In addition, the method for sending a media stream provided by the embodiment of the present invention does not require the client to participate, so that the client is not required to be upgraded, thereby improving the adaptability of the client; no additional message between the client and the server is needed, thereby avoiding Additional bandwidth overhead increases server performance. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, a brief description of the drawings used in the embodiments or the prior art description will be briefly described below. The drawings are some embodiments of the present invention, and those skilled in the art can obtain other drawings based on these drawings without any inventive labor.

 FIG. 1 is a schematic flowchart of a method for sending a media stream according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a server according to another embodiment of the present invention. The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention are clearly and completely described in the following with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. The embodiments are a part of the embodiments of the invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the present invention without creative efforts are within the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic flowchart of a method for sending a media stream according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the method for sending a media stream in this embodiment may include: 101. The server determines, according to the media stream that is sent to the client and has a preset transmission code rate, the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located;

 For example, when the client requests the media stream, the server may send the media stream with the preset transmission code rate to the client, so that the server can determine the terminal where the client is located according to the media stream with the preset transmission code rate sent to the client. The bandwidth used.

 For example, a video file can be divided into several video groups, each starting with a key (I) frame and capable of playing independently. In addition, in order to be able to quickly locate the position of each video group in the video file, the position of each video group in the video file can be identified by the time at the beginning, end of the video file or in a separate file. The above index is used only when the server locates the video group, and does not need to be sent to the client. To facilitate switching video between bit rates, video groups of different bitrate video files are split at the same time interval.

 When the server receives the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)-based acquisition request message sent by the client, the server first sends a media stream with a preset transmission code rate to the client (ie, has a preset transmission code rate). One or several video groups). The HTTP-based acquisition request message may be initiated by the client when the video file is initially accessed, or may be initiated by the client when performing the forward or backward operation after the initial access to the video file, which is not performed in this embodiment. limited.

 Then, the server can determine the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located according to the media stream sent to the client with the preset transmission bit rate. For example, the sending control unit in the server can record the current time point as the starting time point before sending the video group; then, the sending control unit in the server starts to call the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (Transmission Control Protocol) provided by the operating system. /Internet Protocol (referred to as TCP/IP) Socket Application Programming Interface (API) sends video groups. The TCP/IP protocol stack in the server completes the transmission of the video group according to TCP/IP, and passes the input/output after receiving all the confirmations of receiving the response from the client.

(Input/Output, I/O for short) event and other methods notify the sending control unit in the server to complete the transmission; after receiving the notification, the sending control unit in the server records the current time point as the ending time point; Finally, the bandwidth calculation in the server The unit can calculate the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located according to formula (1). among them,

Bandwidth = length of video group / (end time point - start time point) Formula (1) It can be understood that: Generally, a video group with a lower transmission rate has a smaller buffering time. If a video group has a short playing time, in order to make the server determine the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located, the server Multiple video groups can be sent to the client continuously, for example, at least one video group with a play time of more than 10 seconds.

 102. The server determines, according to the foregoing bandwidth, a transmission code rate corresponding to the foregoing bandwidth. Specifically, the server may specifically use a code rate that is less than or equal to a bandwidth used by the terminal determined by the server to be used as a transmission code rate.

 For example, the bandwidth used by the client's terminal is 2 megabits per second (Mbps), and the server can choose to transmit a bit rate less than or equal to 2 Mbps. If the current transmission code rate is 0.5 Mbps, the server can directly determine the transmission rate of 2 Mbps; or it can also determine that the transmission rate is 1 Mbps, which can avoid large fluctuations in the transmission rate.

 103. The server sends a media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client. For example, suppose that the video file requested by the terminal can be divided into N video groups. Before the server has sent 5 video groups with preset transmission bit rates, then, at this time, the server can continue to send the remaining to the client. (N-5) video groups having the above transmission code rate.

 Optionally, the media distribution unit in the server may send an adjustment request including the foregoing transmission code rate to the front-end device in the server, so that the media distribution unit acquires the transmission code with the foregoing determination that the front-end device re-encodes according to the transmission code rate. Rate media stream; Then, the media distribution unit may send the media stream to the client. a media stream of a code rate and an adjustment request including the transmission rate, wherein the media distribution unit acquires a media stream having the determined transmission code rate converted by the media transcoding unit according to the transmission code rate; and then the media distribution unit The above media stream can be sent to the above client. a media stream of a code rate and an adjustment request including the transmission rate, wherein the media distribution unit acquires a media stream having the determined transmission code rate previously converted by the media transcoding unit; and then the media distribution unit may The client sends the above media stream.

Optionally, the server may monitor the load of the server. If the load of the server is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, the server may send a media stream with a preset transmission code rate to the client, thereby effectively reducing the load on the server. , able to support more clients. The method for sending a media stream according to the embodiment of the present invention may be applicable to a scenario of a client, and may also be applicable to a scenario of multiple clients. The embodiment of the present invention does not limit the number of clients.

 In this embodiment, the server determines the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located according to the media stream that is sent to the client with the preset transmission code rate, and determines the transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth according to the determined bandwidth, thereby The server can enable the server to send a media stream with a determined transmission code rate to the client, improve the quality of the streaming media service of the client, and save network resources. In addition, the method for sending the media stream provided in this embodiment does not need the client to participate, so that the client is not required to be upgraded, thereby improving the adaptability of the client; no additional message between the client and the server is needed, thereby avoiding additional The bandwidth overhead increases the performance of the server.

 It should be noted that, for the foregoing method embodiments, for the sake of simple description, they are all expressed as a series of action combinations, but those skilled in the art should understand that the present invention is not limited by the described action sequence. Because in accordance with the present invention, certain steps may be performed in other sequences or concurrently. In addition, those skilled in the art should also understand that the embodiments described in the specification are all preferred embodiments, and the actions and modules involved are not necessarily required by the present invention.

 In the above embodiments, the descriptions of the various embodiments are different, and the parts that are not detailed in a certain embodiment can be referred to the related descriptions of other embodiments.

 FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a server according to another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the server in this embodiment may include a bandwidth determining unit 21, a code rate determining unit 22, and a code rate adjusting unit 23. The bandwidth determining unit 21 is configured to determine a bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located. The code rate determining unit 22 is configured to determine, according to the bandwidth determined by the bandwidth determining unit, a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth, where the code rate adjusting unit 23 is used. Transmitting, to the client, a media stream having the above-mentioned transmission code rate determined by the above-described rate determining unit.

 The functions of the server in the embodiment corresponding to the above FIG. 1 can be implemented by the server provided in this embodiment.

 Specifically, the code rate determining unit 22 in this embodiment may specifically use a code rate less than or equal to the above bandwidth of the bandwidth determining unit determination 21 as the transmission code rate.

 For example, when the client requests the media stream, the server may send the media stream with the preset transmission code rate to the client, so that the bandwidth determining unit 21 in this embodiment may send the preset transmission code rate according to the server to the client. The media stream determines the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located.

For example, the code rate adjustment unit 23 subsequently sends a specific transmission code rate to the client (for example). For example, when the media stream of the transmission rate determined by the code rate determining unit 22, the bandwidth determining unit 21 in this embodiment can transmit the above-mentioned transmission code determined by the code rate determining unit 22 to the client according to the code rate adjusting unit 23. Rate the media stream to determine the bandwidth used by the client where the client is located.

 Optionally, the code rate adjusting unit 23 in this embodiment may specifically send, to the client, a media stream having the determined transmission code rate obtained by re-encoding according to the foregoing transmission code rate.

 Optionally, the code rate adjusting unit 23 in this embodiment may further send, to the client, a media stream that has the transmission code rate determined by the code rate determining unit 22 according to the foregoing transmission rate conversion, and the media stream.

 Optionally, the code rate adjustment unit 23 in this embodiment may further send, to the client, a media stream that has been previously converted by the server and has the transmission code rate determined by the code rate determining unit 22 described above.

 Optionally, the code rate adjustment unit 23 in this embodiment may be further configured to: if the load of the server is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, send a media stream with a preset transmission code rate to the client, thereby being effective. Reduce the burden on the server and support more clients.

 In this embodiment, the server determines, by the bandwidth determining unit, the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located according to the media stream that is sent to the client and has the preset transmission code rate, and is determined by the rate determining unit according to the bandwidth determined by the bandwidth determining unit. The transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth, so that the flow can be reduced, and the quality of the streaming media service of the client and the waste of network resources caused by the bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located are inconsistent with the fixed code rate. The problem is that the quality of the streaming media service of the client is improved and the network resources are saved. In addition, the method for sending a media stream provided by the embodiment of the present invention does not require the client to participate, so that the client is not required to be upgraded, thereby improving the adaptability of the client; no additional message between the client and the server is needed, thereby avoiding Additional bandwidth overhead increases server performance.

In the several embodiments provided by the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus, and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the device embodiments described above are merely illustrative. For example, the division of the unit is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be another division manner, for example, multiple units or components may be combined or Can be integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored, or not executed. In addition, the mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interface, device or unit, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form. The components displayed for the unit may or may not be physical units, ie may be located in one place, or may be distributed over multiple network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

 In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present invention may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist physically separately, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit. The above integrated unit can be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of hardware plus software functional units.

 The above-described integrated unit implemented in the form of a software functional unit can be stored in a computer readable storage medium. The above software functional units are stored in a storage medium and include a number of instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, server, or network device, etc.) to perform some of the steps of the methods described in various embodiments of the present invention. The foregoing storage medium includes: a USB flash drive, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, and the like, which can store program codes. Medium.

 It should be noted that the above embodiments are only for explaining the technical solutions of the present invention, and are not intended to be limiting; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that: The technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments are modified, or some of the technical features are equivalently replaced. The modifications and substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

Claim  A method for transmitting a media stream, comprising:  The server determines the bandwidth used by the terminal of the client according to the media stream sent to the client with the preset transmission code rate;  Determining, by the server, a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth according to the bandwidth;  The server transmits a media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client.  The method according to claim 1, wherein the server determines a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth according to the bandwidth, and includes:  The server uses a code rate less than or equal to the bandwidth as a transmission code rate.  The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the server sends the media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client, including:  The server transmits to the client a media stream having a determined transmission code rate obtained by re-encoding according to the transmission code rate.  The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the server sends the media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client, including:  The server transmits to the client a media stream having a determined transmission code rate obtained according to the transmission rate conversion.  The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the server sends the media stream having the determined transmission code rate to the client, including:  The server transmits to the client a media stream having the determined transmission code rate pre-converted by the server.  The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the method further comprises:  If the load of the server is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, the server sends a media stream with a preset transmission code rate to the client.  7. A server, comprising:  a bandwidth determining unit, configured to determine, according to the media stream that is sent by the server to the client and has a preset transmission code rate, a bandwidth used by the terminal where the client is located; a code rate determining unit, configured to determine, according to the bandwidth determined by the bandwidth determining unit, a transmission code rate corresponding to the bandwidth; And a code rate adjusting unit, configured to send, to the client, a media stream that has a transmission code rate determined by the code rate determining unit.  The server according to claim 7, wherein the code rate determining unit is specifically configured to  A code rate smaller than or equal to the bandwidth determined by the bandwidth determining unit is taken as a transmission code rate. The server according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the code rate adjustment unit is further used for  If the load of the server is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, a media stream having a preset transmission code rate is sent to the client.