Patent ID: 8140702

Claim:
A method of maximizing utility of a media delivery network, said method comprising: defining constraints of the media delivery network, the media delivery network having a media source, a first media adaptor, a second media adaptor and a media renderer, the media source being operable to provide data in a first format and a second format, the first media adaptor being operable to receive the data in the first format from the media source, the second media adaptor being operable to receive the data in the second format from the media source, the first media adaptor being operable to provide data in a third format based on the received data in the first format, the second media adaptor being operable to provide data in a fourth format based on the received data in the second format, the media renderer being operable to render a first received data based on the data provided by the first media adaptor and to render a second received data based on the data provided by the second media adaptor; predetermining factors to measure a utility of the media delivery network, a factor comprising a media modality quality relating an importance of a media adapter to content of the media source and a type of adaptation of the media adaptor; defining a utility function based on the predetermined factors by defining a utility equation as U = ∑ j ∈ R ⁢ ∑ i ∈ G ⁢ m i ⁢ s i , j ⁢ η i , j ⁢ x i , j , and wherein R represents the media renderer; G represents a set of nodes including the media source, the first media adapter and the second media adapter; m i represents media modality quality of node i; s i,j represents a device dependent satisfaction of the media renderer of adapted media from node i; η i,j is a resource usage ratio for a data stream between node i and node j; and x i,j is network flow of a data stream between node i and node j; maximizing the utility function in light of the defined constraints; and arranging the media renderer to receive one of the first received data and the second received data based on the maximized utility function.