US 8327013

Patent Overview: US8327013B2 — Dynamic Index File Creation for Media Streaming

Title: Dynamic index file creation for media streaming

Patent number: US8327013B2 (application US13/429,656; publication US20120185608A1)

Inventors: Albert John McGowan; Richard L. Carls

Original assignee: Unicorn Media Inc. Listed current assignee: Adeia Media Holdings Inc.

Priority date: 2010-06-30. Filing date: 2012-03-26. Grant/publication date: 2012-12-04. Listed anticipated expiration: 2030-12-22. Legal status listed as Active.

Purpose: The disclosure addresses cloud-based processing and the challenges of chunking and indexing media files for streaming. Conventional preprocessing requires substantial advance work, offers little flexibility for inserting advertisements mid-stream, and consumes large storage for preprocessed chunks. The disclosed systems and methods generate index files on request during streaming, rather than in advance, and can be used with a dynamic chunk generator to permit advertisement insertion at any point during playback.

Plain-language scope: A server with memory, a network interface, and a processor receives requests for index files during playback of a media file by a device on the network. For each request, it determines a segment (one of several separately addressable segments of the media file), including deciding whether to include media other than the media file (e.g., an advertisement) and setting the segment's start and end points. It then generates and returns the requested index file. The claims also cover a method variant and a URI-based variant in which, after the index file is provided, a media streaming application requests a chunk, and the system determines and provides a URI for that chunk.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8327013](/patent/US8327013)/en

What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claims, complete specification, drawings, or dependent-claim details (the text is partly truncated at FIG. 1). It does not establish prosecution history, claim construction, validity, enforceability, or prior art beyond listed keywords. Litigation, assignment, and expiration entries are source metadata only and are not analyzed here.