Scheduling policies with grouping for providing VCR control functions in a video server

Claim 1

A method of supporting pause-resume for a video-on-demand service of a type which can accommodate multiple viewer sharing a common data stream, comprising the steps of: receiving a performance request from one of the viewers for showing a particular video; concurrently transmitting the common data stream from a video server to reception equipment at the viewer's locations, transmission of the data stream causing the particular video to be performed on reception equipment at the viewer's locations; receiving at the video server, a pause request and a subsequent resume request from one of the viewers; determining a point in the particular video at which the pause request was received by the video server; in response to the resume request, determining whether another showing of the video, carried by a different data stream, is scheduled to reach the point at which the pause was received within a threshold time period; when it is determined that the another showing will reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, assigning the viewer to the different data stream; when it is determined that the another showing will not reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, determining whether a reserved video stream is available, and if so assigning the viewer to a reserved data stream and transmitting the video, from the point at which the pause was received, on the reserved data stream; when it is determined that a reserved video stream is not available, waiting for an ongoing data stream to end and scheduling the user to have priority for assignment to the ongoing data stream.

Claim 2

A method of supporting pause-resume for a video-on-demand service of a type which can accommodate multiple viewer sharing a common data stream, comprising the steps of: receiving a performance request from one of the viewers for showing a particular video; concurrently transmitting the common data stream from a video server to reception equipment at the viewer's locations, transmission of the data stream causing the particular video to be performed on the reception equipment; receiving at the video server, a pause request and a subsequent resume request from one of the viewers; determining a point in the particular video at which the pause request was received by the video server; determining whether another showing of the video, carried by a different data stream, is scheduled to reach the point at which the pause was received within a threshold time period; when it is determined that the another showing will reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, assigning the viewer to the different data stream.

Claim 3

A method of supporting pause-resume for a video-on-demand service of a type which can accommodate multiple viewer sharing a common data stream, comprising the steps of: receiving a performance request from one of the viewers for showing a particular video; concurrently transmitting the common data stream from a video server to reception equipment at the viewer's locations, transmission of the data stream causing the particular video to be performed on the reception equipment; receiving at the video server, a pause request and a subsequent resume request from one of the viewers; in response to the pause request, storing the data stream to an allocated portion of a memory buffer; determining whether the client can be served from the buffer and still view the movie in continuity; when the movie can not be viewed from the buffer in continuity, in response to the resume request, determining whether another showing of the video, carried by a different data stream, is scheduled to reach the point at which the pause was received within a threshold time period; when it is determined that the another showing will reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, assigning the viewer to the different data stream; when it is determined that the another showing will not reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, determining whether a reserved video stream is available, and if so assigning the viewer to a reserved data stream and transmitting the video, from the point at which the pause was received, on the reserved video stream; and, when it is determined that a reserved video stream is not available, waiting for an ongoing data stream to end and scheduling the user to have priority for assignment to the ongoing data stream.

Claim 4

A method of supporting pause-resume for a video-on-demand system of a type which can accommodate multiple viewers, comprising the steps of: providing a contingency pool capacity comprising a number of streams set aside for handling resume requests; providing a normal pool capacity comprising the remaining stream capacity of the video on demand system; receiving a performance request from one of the viewers for showing a particular video; concurrently transmitting a multicast stream from a video server to reception equipment at a plurality of the viewer's locations; receiving at the video server, a pause request and a subsequent resume request from one of the viewers; determining a point in the particular video at which the pause request was received by the video server; determining when the pause request has been received from a viewer of a non-multicast stream; in response to a determination that the pause request was received from a viewer of the non-multicast stream, returning the stream capacity for the non-multicast stream to the contingency pool capacity when a number of the stream capacities in the contingency pool is below a threshold number and otherwise returning the stream capacity for the non-multicast stream to the normal pool capacity; in response to the resume request from a viewer of a multicast stream, determining whether another showing of the video, carried by a different data stream, is scheduled to reach the point at which the pause was received within a threshold time period; when it is determined that the another showing will reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, assigning the viewer to the different data stream; when it is determined that the another showing will not reach the point at which the pause was received within the threshold time period, determining whether a reserved video stream is available from the contingency pool capacity, and if so assigning the viewer to the reserved data stream and transmitting the video, from the point at which the pause was received, on the reserved data stream; when it is determined that a reserved video stream is not available, waiting for an ongoing data stream to end and scheduling the user to have priority for assignment to the ongoing data stream.