Patent ID: 8843656
Filing Date: 2014-09-23
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for preventing overestimation of available bandwidth, comprising: generating a bandwidth estimation for an adaptive bitrate (ABR) client configured to receive ABR encoded chunks; evaluating a current state of a buffer of the ABR client; determining an encoding rate to be used for the ABR client based, at least, on the bandwidth estimation and the current state of the buffer; and determining a minimum fetch interval I(b) based on a current level of the buffer b, wherein: I(b) is a time period the ABR client waits before fetching a next chunk having the determined encoding rate; if b is less than the minimum level b_min, I(b) equals zero; if b is greater than or equal to the maximum level b_max, I(b) equals to the duration of each encoded ABR chunk D; and otherwise, I(b) is defined by a function of D*(b−b_min)/(b_max−b_min), wherein the function linearly interpolates I(b) from zero to D as b increases from b_min to b_max.