KR20170120971A - Method of Efficient Video Pacing Considering User's Random Watching Point and Apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an efficient video pacing method considering random watching area selection and an apparatus therefor. The method comprises the steps of: checking, by a content providing apparatus, whether a chunk to be played for a predetermined time or longer from a time point currently played in a terminal apparatus is stored; sequentially transmitting a chunk in an ascending order when the chunk to be played is not stored; and selecting a next chunk to transmit based on hit point information on each chunk to be transmitted the selected chunk to the terminal apparatus when the chunk to be played is stored for the predetermined time or longer. Therefore, the re-buffering time is minimized to improve a QoE of a user even in random selection on a consumption time point in content consumed by the user.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an efficient video pacing method considering random viewing area selection,

The present invention relates to an efficient video pacing method considering random viewing area selection and an apparatus therefor, and more particularly, to a video pacing method and apparatus for selecting a portion of a video streaming service, And more particularly to a method and apparatus for improving a quality of experience (QoE) of a user by reducing temporal re-buffering phenomenon occurring when a user wishes to view the QoE.

The contents described in this section merely provide background information on the present embodiment and do not constitute the prior art.

Real-time multimedia service is one of multimedia data transmission methods, and refers to a method of reproducing or consuming audio and video contents. Such a real-time multimedia service can be divided into an interactive service, an interactive service, and a streaming service depending on the type of service. Of these, the streaming service does not download all the large- Can be reproduced.

Due to this streaming service, in the live streaming service such as live streaming and live broadcasting, such a streaming method can further guarantee the real time property as compared with the existing download type.

However, as the streaming service market grows, the problem of traffic increase of streaming service is caused.

For example, if a large portion of the content is downloaded in anticipation of the user's continuous watching, but the user does not consume all of the content and ends up in the middle or selects another scene, There was a problem of waste and loss.

In order to solve such a problem, a video pacing transmission technique has been developed. The video pacing transmission technique is controlled by the server to transmit only data within a range of several minutes or several tens of seconds at the time when a user consumes contents. By the transmission technique, even if the user stops consuming the content while consuming the content, the loss of bandwidth and traffic can be minimized.

However, since the simple video pacing transmission technique as described above transmits based on the part currently consumed by the user, if the user desires to consume content by selecting an area that has not been downloaded in advance, There is a problem in that a temporary re-buffering phenomenon occurs and the QoE of a user consuming the content is lowered.

Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2016-0005663 (titled MMT apparatus and method for low-delay service, publication date: 2016.01.15)

The present invention has been proposed in order to solve the above-described problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for transmitting a consumption area predicted by a user to a terminal device in advance, An efficient video pacing method considering a random viewing area selection that can improve a user's QoE, and an apparatus therefor.

That is, the chunks corresponding to the portions having a high probability of being randomly selected because they are popular among users in the contents are selected and transmitted to the terminal device in advance, so that when the user selects and watches the corresponding portion, And to provide an apparatus and method for efficient video pacing considering a random viewing area selection in order to increase user's satisfaction in consuming contents.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for transmitting content data comprising a plurality of chunks in units of chunks, the method comprising the steps of: Checking whether at least one next chunk to be sequentially reproduced is stored in the specific terminal device by a predetermined number or more; if it is determined that a predetermined number or more of the next chunks are stored in the specific terminal device, A first transmission step of selecting a chunk to be transmitted on the basis of hit point information that matches the degree of reproduction of each piece of content by the device by chunks and transmitting the selected chunk to the specific terminal device, If it is determined that the terminal device is not stored, And a second transmission step of sequentially transmitting the chunks according to the number of the first transmission.

At this time, the chunk is composed of at least one MFU (Media Fragment Unit) which is the minimum decoding unit included in the payload of the chunk, or at least one MPU (Media Processing Unit) including the at least one MFU MPEG Media Transport) chunk, and the hit point information may be matched to each MPU included in the MMT chunk.

The method may further include the step of measuring the degree of reproduction of each part of the content by at least one terminal device and the step of generating hit point information of the content based on the measured degree of reproduction, And the confirming may be performed by receiving a feedback message including at least one of chunk information currently being reproduced and currently stored chunk information from the specific terminal device.

The checking step may be based on at least one of a network status between the content providing apparatus and the specific terminal device and a presentation time allocated to each chunk, And grouping the plurality of chunks into one or more groups based on the order of each chunk, wherein the first transmission step or the second transmission step may transmit a chunk in units of the grouped group, The first transmission step may select a group to be transmitted to the specific terminal device based on the hit point information of the representative chunk for each group, .

On the other hand, the transmission method described above can be provided as a computer-readable recording medium on which a program for executing the method as described above is recorded, and a computer program stored in a computer-readable recording medium, May be provided.

The content providing apparatus for achieving the above object is a content providing apparatus for transmitting content data composed of a plurality of chunks to a specific terminal apparatus in units of chunks, A storage module for storing hit point information in which a degree of reproduction of a portion is reproduced for each of the chunks, and a storage module for storing a chunk to be reproduced in a specific terminal device and at least one next chunk to be sequentially reproduced after the chunk to be reproduced, And if it is determined that the stored information is stored in the specific terminal device, selects and transmits a chunk to be transmitted to the specific terminal device based on the hit point information, and when it is determined that the chunk is not stored, To transfer the chunks in sequence to the chunks sequentially until A control module that may include.

At this time, the chunk is composed of at least one MFU (Media Fragment Unit) which is the minimum decoding unit included in the payload of the chunk, or at least one MPU (Media Processing Unit) including the at least one MFU MPEG Media Transport) chunk, and the hit point information may be matched to each MPU included in the MMT chunk.

According to the present invention, it is checked whether a chunk to be reproduced for a predetermined time or longer is stored from the time when the content providing apparatus is currently reproduced in the terminal device. If not, the chunks are sequentially transmitted on the basis of the sequence number, If chunks are stored, chunks are selected and transmitted to the terminal device based on hit point information for each chunk, thereby minimizing the re-buffering time even when the user considers the consumption time at random in the content consumed by the user. QoE can be improved.

In addition, various effects other than the above-described effects can be directly or implicitly disclosed in the detailed description according to the embodiment of the present invention to be described later.

1 is a diagram illustrating a main configuration of a transmission system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is an exemplary view for explaining an MMT chunk structure according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG.
3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a content providing apparatus according to the present invention.
4 is a flowchart illustrating a transmission method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 to 7 are diagrams for explaining an embodiment of a transmission method according to the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS For a more complete understanding of the nature and advantages of the present invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

In the following description and the accompanying drawings, detailed description of well-known functions or constructions that may obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted. It should be noted that the same constituent elements are denoted by the same reference numerals as possible throughout the drawings.

The terms and words used in the following description and drawings are not to be construed in an ordinary sense or a dictionary, and the inventor can properly define his or her invention as a concept of a term to be described in the best way It should be construed as meaning and concept consistent with the technical idea of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments described in the present specification and the configurations shown in the drawings are merely the most preferred embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the technical ideas of the present invention are described. Therefore, It is to be understood that equivalents and modifications are possible.

Also, terms including ordinal numbers such as first, second, etc. are used to describe various elements, and are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one element from another, Not used. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, the second component may be referred to as a first component, and similarly, the first component may also be referred to as a second component.

Also, the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. It is also to be understood that the terms such as " comprising "or" having ", as used herein, are intended to specify the presence of stated features, integers, It should be understood that the foregoing does not preclude the presence or addition of other features, numbers, steps, operations, elements, parts, or combinations thereof.

Also, the terms "part," "module," and the like, which are described in the specification, refer to a unit for processing at least one function or operation, and may be implemented by hardware or software or a combination of hardware and software. Also, the terms " a or ", "one "," the ", and the like are synonyms in the context of describing the invention (particularly in the context of the following claims) May be used in a sense including both singular and plural, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

In addition to the above-described terms, certain terms used in the following description are provided to facilitate understanding of the present invention, and the use of such specific terms may be changed to other forms without departing from the technical idea of the present invention.

In addition, embodiments within the scope of the present invention include computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored on computer-readable media. Such computer-readable media can be any available media that is accessible by a general purpose or special purpose computer system. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or in the form of computer- But is not limited to, a physical storage medium such as any other medium that can be used to store or communicate certain program code means of the general purpose or special purpose computer system, .

In the following description and claims, it is assumed that the technical background for implementing the video pacing method according to the present invention is an MMT (MPEG Media Transport).

That is, the chunk described in the embodiment of the present invention is an MMT chunk, and a detailed description of the structure of the MMT chunk will be given later.

However, this is only an example for convenience of understanding of the present invention, and the present invention is not necessarily limited to the MMT technology.

Now, a video pacing method according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 is a block diagram of a system for transmitting chunks of content data in a streaming service according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a system for transmitting chunks of content data according to an embodiment of the present invention may include a terminal device 200 and a content providing device 300, The content providing apparatus 300 is linked through the communication network 100.

Each component will now be schematically described with reference to FIG.

First, the communication network 100 transmits data for transmitting and receiving data between the terminal device 200 and the content providing server 300. In accordance with a system implementation method, an Ethernet, xDSL (ADSL, VDSL), HFC (WLAN), Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi), WiBro, WiBro, etc., can be used, as well as a wired communication method such as a hybrid fiber coaxial cable, a fiber to the curb (FTTC) A wireless communication method such as WiMAX, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), or Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE) may be used. In addition to the above communication methods, And may include any type of communication scheme to be developed.

The terminal device 200 refers to a user device capable of transmitting and receiving various data to and from the content providing device 300 through the communication network 100 according to a user's operation.

The terminal device 200 can perform voice or data communication through the communication network 100 and includes a memory for storing programs and protocols for data transmission and reception and a microprocessor for executing and controlling various programs, And the like.

In addition, the terminal device 200 of the present invention can be implemented in various forms. For example, the terminal device 200 described in the present specification may be a mobile terminal such as a smart phone, a tablet PC, a PDA (personal digital assistant), a portable multimedia player (PMP) Of course, if a fixed terminal such as a smart TV, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, or the like can be used and any other device capable of transmitting and receiving data according to the present invention, As shown in FIG.

Meanwhile, the terminal device 200 according to the present invention requests content transmission to the content providing device 300 according to a user's input, and can receive content from the content providing device 300 in a streaming manner.

At this time, the content may be received in chunks, and the chunk may be an MMT chunk.

On the other hand, the terminal device 200 can sequentially receive the chunks of the content data in order from the content providing device 300 according to the input of the user, but the user can select an arbitrary portion, When requested, the content providing apparatus 300 can receive the chunk of the corresponding portion.

Particularly, according to the embodiment of the present invention, even if the user does not select any part, the chunks of the part likely to be selected by the user can be received from the content providing device 300 and temporarily stored.

In addition, the terminal device 200 can periodically or non-periodically transmit a feedback message to the content providing device 300. The feedback message includes chunk information corresponding to the content portion currently being reproduced by the terminal device 200, And may include the chunk information of the corresponding content stored in the terminal device 200.

The feedback message may be a Message Queuing Interface (MQI) message, a NAM Feedback message, or the like. That is, the chunk information corresponding to the content portion currently reproduced by the terminal device 200 and the chunk information currently stored in the terminal device 200 are included in the MQI message or the NAM Feedback message and transmitted to the content providing device 300 Lt; / RTI >

Lastly, the content providing apparatus 300 may be configured to transmit content data such as moving pictures stored in the content providing apparatus 300 or received from an external apparatus (not shown) to the terminal apparatus 200 through the communication network 100 Device.

At this time, the content providing apparatus 300 transmits the content data to the terminal device 200 in units of chunks. In an embodiment of the present invention, the chunks may be MMT chunks.

2, the structure of the MMT chunk transmitted from the content providing apparatus 300 to the terminal apparatus 200 will be described with reference to FIG. 2. The MMT package 10 includes an MMT function Is the largest logically structured MMT entity among the data models defined in the domain, which means one independent content such as a movie. A content providing apparatus 300 providing a streaming content providing service such as a moving image can generate such an MMT package and provide the generated MMT package to the terminal 200. The MMT package 10 includes a logically structured Can be a collection. The MMT package 10 may include one or more assets 20, presentation information 11, transport properties 13, and descriptive information, e.g., package information.

Presentation information 11 includes information on a relationship between a plurality of assets 20, that is, a spatial and temporal relationship, and one content is stored in a plurality of MMT packages And may further include information for indicating a relationship between a plurality of MMT packages. The presentation information 11 may be a combination of a hypertext markup language (HTML) and a composition information document as examples of the presentation information 11.

The Asset Delivery Characteristics (ADC) 13 represents quality of service (QoS) requirements and statistics for delivery of the asset 20. A plurality of assets 20 may be associated with one transport characteristic 13. At this time, the transport characteristics (transmission characteristics) 13 can be used to set the parameters of the MMT payload and the MMT protocol by the entity encapsulating the package for effective delivery of the asset 20. [ The transport property 13 may also include transport characteristic information needed to determine the delivery condition of the MMT asset 20 or the MMT chunk and may include transport characteristic information such as traffic description parameter and QoS And may include a QoS descriptor. This transfer characteristic information can be expressed in the form of parameters irrespective of the network environment.

Asset 20 refers to the largest logical data unit, meaning an element of a package that encapsulates encoded media data such as audio, video or web page data with timed or non-timed nature. Such an asset 20 means a data entity containing data with the same transfer characteristics. For example, if the MMT package 10 is the largest entity among the data models defined in the MMT functional area, then the asset 20 may be audio data, video data, script data Quot; data unit " These assets 20 logically group MPUs sharing the same Asset ID.

In addition, the MMT chunk of the present invention may be substantially configured to include an MMT header and an MMT payload.

In addition, the MMT chunk according to the embodiment of the present invention may include an mpu_interest_number field indicating a transmission order according to the hit point information based transmission when the corresponding MMT chunk is transmitted based on the hit point information mapped to the corresponding MPU.

The mpu_interest_number field may be included in the MP table, the MPU timestamp descriptor, the CI, or the corresponding signaling message. If the mpu_interest_number field is included in the MPU timestamp descriptor, the syntax of the corresponding MPU timestamp descriptor is [ Table 1].

Syntax No. of bits Mnemonic MPU_timestamp_descriptor () {
descriptor_tag
descriptor_length
for (i = 0; i <N; i ++) {
mpu_sequence_number
mpu_presentation_time
mpu_interest_number
}
}
16
8

32
64
32
uimsbf
uimsbf

uimsbf
uimsbf
uimsbf

3 to 4, a method of transmitting the MMT chunks to the terminal device 200 and a configuration of the content providing apparatus 300 according to the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to FIGS. Let's take a look.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the content providing apparatus 300, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining a method of transmitting a chunk to the terminal apparatus 200 by the content providing apparatus 300. FIG.

3, the content providing apparatus 300 may include a communication module 310, a storage module 330, and a control module 350.

The communication module 310 is for transmitting and receiving data to and from the terminal device 200 through the communication network 100. The control module 350 transmits a chunk of the content data selected by the control module 350 to the terminal device 200, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > a < / RTI >

The storage module 330 may store data of various contents to be transmitted to the terminal device 200 through the communication module 310 in the form of a content information DB 333.

Also, in the present invention, the storage module 330 may store hit points information in the form of a hit point information DB 331 by mapping hit points information for each chunk of each content data.

The hit point information is obtained by matching the degree of reproduction of a portion of the content corresponding to each chunk constituting the content with respect to each chunk. The hit point information indicates how much each of the pieces of content has been consumed by at least one user, It is a measure of interest or interest of star users.

The control module 350 is an apparatus for controlling the overall operation of the content providing apparatus 300 according to the present invention and may include a chunk transmission control module 351 and a hit point information generation module 353, The chunk transmission control module 351 controls the terminal device 200 to select and transmit a chunk of the content data to be transmitted.

That is, the chunk transmission control module 351 determines the chunk transmission control module 351 based on the order of the chunks currently consumed in the terminal device 200, the amount of chunks transmitted and stored in the terminal device 200, Sets a chunk order of the content data to be transmitted to the terminal device 200, and controls the chunks to be transmitted to the terminal device 200 according to the above procedure. However, the order of transmitted chunks may change from time to time until all content data is transmitted.

The hit point information generation module 353 generates hit point information for each chunk stored in the hit point information DB 331. [

4, the operation of the content providing apparatus 300 operated by the control module 350 including the chunk transmission control module 351 and the hit point information generating module 353 will be described in more detail Let's take a look.

The content providing apparatus 300 measures the degree to which a part of content corresponding to a chunk is reproduced by at least one terminal device 200 for each chunk constituting the content, and generates chunk-specific and hit-point information based on the measured degree The generated hit point information is mapped to each chunk and stored (S101).

That is, it is measured by users who consume the content randomly selected and watched and consumed with interest and interest in a certain part of the content, and hit point information is generated for each chunk corresponding to the corresponding region based on the measurement .

At this time, the information about which part of the contents the user has reproduced and consumed is included in the feedback message periodically or aperiodically received from the terminal device 200, or included in a separate message for generating hit point information, And can be transmitted to the providing apparatus 300.

Thereafter, the content providing apparatus 300 confirms the chunk of the portion currently being reproduced in the terminal device 200 (S103), and sequentially updates the chunks to be reproduced next It is confirmed whether or not the data is stored in the terminal device 200 (S105).

If a predetermined number or more of chunks are stored in the terminal device 200, the chunks to be transmitted to the terminal device 200 are selected based on the hit point information, the order is set, The chunk is transmitted to the terminal device 200 (S107).

If a predetermined number or more of chunks are not stored in the terminal device 200, the next sequential chunk is transmitted to the terminal device 200 until a predetermined number of chunks are stored to ensure stable viewing of the user (S109) .

This is because, when a chunk is mainly transmitted to the terminal device 200 in a chunk-oriented manner with a high hit point depending only on the hit point information, when a user watches the content sequentially without watching the contents at random, To prevent the phenomenon that the data must be re-buffered.

In other words, if the chunk of the portion currently watched by the user is one chunk and the fifth chunk is to be stored in the buffer of the terminal device 200 in order to ensure stable viewing of the user, If it is determined that the chunks currently being reproduced by the apparatus 200 are chunks 1 and stored up to at least five chunks in the terminal device 200 and then stored up to the fifth chunk, then, based on the hit point information, The terminal device 200 transmits the chunk having the highest hit point to the terminal device 200 and transmits the chunk having the highest hit point to the terminal device 200 based on the hit point information after transmitting the chunk to the fifth chunk .

Of course, if the viewing of the portion corresponding to the first chunk is completed during the transmission to the fifth chunk, and if the current viewing point is the second chunk portion, it is confirmed whether at least the sixth chunk is stored in the terminal device 200, Step S109 will be performed.

On the other hand, in S103 and S105, there are two embodiments of a method for confirming whether the terminal device 200 secures the chunk being reproduced in the current terminal device 200 and the next chunk of the predetermined number or more from the chunk .

The first embodiment is a method of receiving a feedback message from the terminal device 200. [

The content providing apparatus 300 receives the feedback message including the information about the chunk currently being reproduced by the terminal 200 and the chunk currently stored periodically or aperiodically from the terminal 200, It is possible to determine whether a sufficient chunk for the sequential viewing of the user has been stored in the current terminal device 200 by checking the information contained in the chunk and the transmission order.

And, as described above, the information included in the feedback message may be used to generate hit point information.

The second embodiment is a method of reproducing chunks currently reproduced from the terminal device 200 based on at least one of a network situation between the content providing device 300 and the terminal device 200 and a presentation time allocated to each chunk It is a method to judge the chunk which is stored.

For example, when the presentation time per chunk is 1 second and the present network condition is based, the content providing apparatus 300 can transmit an average of three chunks per second to the terminal apparatus 200, The content providing apparatus 300 can transmit a chunk having a high hit point to the terminal apparatus 200. In this case,

That is, it is determined that the current terminal device 200 reproduces the first chunk, the presentation time of the first chunk is 1 second, and the current network status indicates that the content providing device 300 transmits an average of three chunks per second The content providing apparatus 300 confirms whether or not at least three chunks have been transmitted to the terminal apparatus 200 at the time of reproducing the first chunk and transmits the at least three chunks to the terminal apparatus 200 by at least three chunks, The terminal device 200 transmits the chunk having the highest hit point to the terminal device 200 and transmits the chunk to the terminal device 200 until the third chunk is transmitted to the terminal device 200. Then, The chunks to be transmitted and the transmission order can be selected.

If the content providing apparatus 300 has transmitted all of the chunks of the content requested by the terminal apparatus 200 through the above process, the content transmission is completed (S111). If the chunks of the content are not transmitted at all, Can be repeatedly executed.

On the other hand, when the content providing apparatus 300 transmits chunks, the content providing apparatus 300 can transmit the chunks on a group basis.

That is, the content providing apparatus 300 may group the plurality of chunks constituting the content into one or more groups based on the hit point information and the order of each chunk, and may transmit chunks on a group basis.

At this time, chunks having the lowest order in each group may be designated as representative chunks, and a group to be transmitted to the terminal device 200 may be selected and transmitted based on the hit point information of the representative chunks for each group.

For example, if the chunks constituting the content are 1 to 20, the first to fifth chunks are assigned to the first group, the sixth to twelfth to the second group based on the hit point information and the order of the chunks, and 13 The first to sixth chunks can be divided into the third group and the fourth to the sixteenth to twentieth. The chunks of the first, sixth, thirteen, and sixteen chunks can be designated as the representative chunks of the respective groups.

If it is determined in step S105 of FIG. 4 that the terminal 200 stores enough chunks for sequential playback, it is determined that sufficient chunks have been stored, and if the process proceeds to step S107, And selects the next chunk to be transmitted based on the hit point information of the 16th chunk. If the 13th chunk is selected as the next chunk to be transmitted, the 13th to 15th chunks of the third group, in which the 13th chunk is the representative chunk, (200).

This transmission method may also be applied to the case of proceeding to step S109.

That is, if the terminal device 200 is reproducing at least the chunk number 3 in the present terminal device 200 and the terminal device 200 has secured the chunk number of at least 7 for stable viewing of the user, The chunks 6 to 12 can be transmitted to the terminal device 200.

As described above, the entire operation of the content providing apparatus 300 is performed by the control module 350. [

Now, an embodiment of the transmission method according to the present invention will be described in detail.

5 to 7 are diagrams for explaining an embodiment of a transmission method according to the present invention.

The transmission order in the last row in Figs. 5 to 6 is matched with the MPU sequence number which is the uppermost row. Therefore, the transmission order of the first chunk is first, and the transmission order of the second chunk is fourth, instead of sequentially sending chunks with sequence numbers of 1, 4, and 5 in sequence.

Referring to FIG. 5, sequence numbers (order numbers) of chunks in units of MPU, hit point information for each MPU chunk, and the like are shown.

5, the hit points of the chunks # 1, # 7, # 11, and # 16 are relatively high.

Accordingly, the content providing apparatus 300 can transmit the MPU chunks in the order of 9th, 8th, 10th and 16th in consideration of the hit point information and the chunk order number, by first transmitting the first chunk to be viewed first have.

However, the hit points of the 2 and 3 MPU chunks are lower than the 7th, but there is a situation in which the MPU chunks must be transmitted first. This is to ensure stable viewing of the user's content by keeping the minimum chunks necessary for the next playback based on the current playback time, when the user consecutively views the content without selecting the viewing area at random.

6 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of a chunk transmission method of grouping a plurality of chunks constituting a content into one or more groups and transmitting them in groups.

Referring to FIG. 6, the MPU sequence number, hit point information for each MPU chunk, and the like are shown in FIG.

However, in FIG. 6, chunks 7 to 11 are grouped into one group in consideration of the hit point information and the order of each chunk.

And the number 7, which is the lowest number in the representative chunk of the group.

The content providing apparatus 300, in which a plurality of chunks are grouped and a representative chunk of the group is specified, determines the transmission order in consideration of the hit points and the order numbers of the representative chunks No. 7.

Referring to FIG. 6, it can be seen that the MPU chunks are transmitted to the terminal 200 in the order of 1, 7, 11, 16, and 2.

7 is a view for explaining a comparison between an existing transmission method and a transmission method according to the present invention.

FIG. 7A shows an existing transmission method. The content providing apparatus 300 transmits chunks sequentially from the first chunk to the terminal device 200 in order.

However, as shown in FIG. 7 (b), the transmission method according to the present invention is based on the hit point information matched for each chunk and the feedback information transmitted to the content providing apparatus 300 by the terminal apparatus 200, So that the QoE of the user can be improved in consideration of the case where the user randomly selects the viewing area to consume the content while watching the stable content of the user.

7 (b), the network status between the terminal device 200 and the content providing device 300 and the expression of the MPU chunks may be expressed without receiving the feedback message from the terminal device 200, as described above, It is also possible to set the order of the MPU chunks to be transmitted considering the time together with the hit point information.

As described above, the present specification contains details of a number of specific implementations, but they should not be construed as being limitations on the scope of any invention or claimability, but rather on the particular embodiment of a particular invention But should be understood as an explanation of the features.

In addition, although the operations are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, it should be understood that such operations must be performed in that particular order or sequential order shown to obtain the desired results, or that all illustrated operations should be performed. In certain cases, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Also, the separation of the various system components of the above-described embodiments should not be understood as requiring such separation in all embodiments, and the described program components and systems will generally be integrated together into a single software product or packaged into multiple software products It should be understood.

The description sets forth the best modes of the present invention and provides examples for the purpose of illustrating the invention and enabling a person skilled in the art to make and use the invention. The written description is not intended to limit the invention to the specific terminology presented. Thus, while the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the above examples, those skilled in the art will recognize that modifications, changes, and modifications can be made thereto without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the described embodiments but should be defined by the claims.

The present invention relates to an efficient video pacing method considering a random viewing area and an apparatus therefor. More particularly, the present invention relates to a video pacing method, And more particularly, to a method and apparatus for improving a quality of experience (QoE) of a user by reducing a temporary re-buffering phenomenon occurring when a user wishes to selectively view the QoE.

According to the present invention, it is possible to check whether or not a chunk to be reproduced for a predetermined time or longer is stored from the time when the content providing apparatus is currently reproduced on the terminal device. If the chunk is not stored, chunks having low sequence numbers are sequentially transmitted, The chunk to be transmitted next is selected based on the hit point information for each chunk and transmitted to the terminal device so that the re-buffering time is minimized even when the consumption time is randomly selected in the content consumed by the user The QoE of the user can be improved.

Accordingly, the present invention can contribute to the development of the streaming service industry through the above-described transmission method. In addition, the present invention is industrially applicable because it is not only possible to market or operate but also can be practically and practically carried out.

100: communication network 200: terminal device 300: content providing device
310: Communication module of the content providing apparatus
330: Storage module of the content providing apparatus
350: Control module of the content providing apparatus
331: Hit point information DB 333: Content information DB
351: Chunk transmission control module 353: Hit point information generation module

Claims (11)

A method for transmitting content data composed of a plurality of chunks in units of chunks,
Confirming whether a predetermined number of at least one next chunk to be sequentially reproduced based on the current reproduction position of the content is stored in the specific terminal device by the content providing device;
When a predetermined number or more of the next chunks are judged to be stored in the specific terminal device, a chunk to be transmitted is selected on the basis of hit point information in which at least one terminal device reproduces the degree of reproduction of each piece of content by each chunk A first transmission step of transmitting to the specific terminal device; And
A second transmission step of sequentially transmitting chunks to the specific terminal device according to the chunk sequence number when it is determined that a predetermined number or more of the next chunks are not stored in the specific terminal device;
≪ / RTI > The method of claim 1, wherein the chunk
At least one MFU (Media Fragment Unit) which is the minimum decoding unit included in the payload of the chunk or at least one MPU (Media Processing Unit) comprising the at least one MFU ,,
The hit point information
And matching each MPU included in the MMT chunk. 2. The method of claim 1,
Measuring a degree of reproduction of each portion of content by at least one terminal device; And
Generating hit point information of the content based on the measured degree of reproduction;
≪ / RTI > 2. The method of claim 1,
And receiving and verifying a feedback message including at least one of chunk information currently being reproduced and chunk information currently being stored from the specific terminal device. 2. The method of claim 1,
And estimating based on at least one of a network situation between the content providing apparatus and the specific terminal device and a presentation time allocated to each chunk. 2. The method of claim 1,
Grouping the plurality of chunks into one or more groups based on the hit point information and the order of each chunk;
, Wherein the first transmission step or the second transmission step
And transmitting a chunk in the grouped group unit. The method according to claim 6,
Designating a chunk having the lowest sequence number as a representative chunk for each group;
Further comprising: a first transmitting step
And selecting a group to be transmitted to the specific terminal device based on the hit point information of the representative chunk for each group. A computer-readable recording medium on which a program for executing the method according to any one of claims 1 to 7 is recorded. A computer program embodied in computer readable recording medium which is embodied to execute the method recited in any one of claims 1 to 7. A content providing apparatus for transmitting content data composed of a plurality of chunks to a specific terminal device in units of chunks,
A storage module for storing hit point information in which a degree of reproduction of a part of contents corresponding to each chunk by at least one terminal device is matched for each of the chunks; And
The method comprising: checking whether a chunk currently being reproduced in a specific terminal device and at least one next chunk to be sequentially reproduced after the reproduced chunk are stored in the specific terminal device by a predetermined number or more; A control module for selecting and transmitting chunks to be transmitted to the specific terminal device based on the number of chunks to be transmitted, and controlling the chunks to be transmitted sequentially according to the order of chunks until it is determined that the chunks are not stored;
To the content providing apparatus. 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the chunk
At least one MFU (Media Fragment Unit) which is the minimum decoding unit included in the payload of the chunk or at least one MPU (Media Processing Unit) comprising the at least one MFU ,
The hit point information
And matches each of the MPUs included in the MMT chunk.

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