BACKGROUND

The majority of cable television content providers distribute their signals in a respective transport stream by digitizing the signals using an encoding format such as MPEG-2 (Motion Picture Experts Group-2). Encoding in accordance with MPEG-2 TS (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) works well for cable television because it is a broadcast service. MPEG-2 TS encoding does not include specific device delivery address information and thus affords higher transport efficiency.

Several modes can be used to transfer the MPEG-2 TS to one or more end users in a current state of the art shared cable network system. In one mode, the MPEG-2 TS is Quadrature Amplitude Modulated (QAM) at a base-band frequency and then Amplitude Modulated (AM) onto a laser signal for fiber optic transmission to a distribution hub in a cable network environment. The distribution hub forwards the signal as an AM laser signal to a distribution node. The receiving distribution node converts the laser signal back to RF at a particular frequency and then combines it with other signals for final transmission over a coaxial cable to the end users in the cable network environment.

In more advanced systems, the MPEG-2 TS is IP (Interest Protocol) encapsulated and sent to the hub using the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). UDP is beneficial because it is a “best effort” delivery protocol. Thus, no overhead is incurred with retransmissions due to lost packets.

In accordance with broadcast technology, a common encoded signal can be transmitted over the coaxial cable to all of the end subscribers in a service group. Thus, if a television station is encoded at a bit rate of 10 M bits per second (Mbps), then 10 Mbps of the transport pipe—for example, fiber optic link, coaxial cable, etc—is consumed for all subscribers.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,389 issued to Barton describes a mechanism in which a television signal is digitized and stored to a disk drive. The format of a digital signal is described in that patent as an MPEG-2 formatted signal. Receipt and storage of an MPEG-2 signal in a disk drive is convenient in current cable systems because, as discussed above, cable systems currently use an MPEG-2 TS format for distributing video. To record one of these signals in a disk drive, the system simply has to receive the signal, decrypt it if necessary, re-encrypt it using a local encryption, and then write the content to the disk drive or other storage media.

At issue is the finite storage capacity of a disk drive. That is, the disk drive eventually fills up with so much data that no more content can be stored in the disk drive. Encoding in accordance with the MPEG-2 standard is not the most efficient currently available encoding mechanism. Encoding in accordance with MPEG-4, section10, is much more efficient because the MPEG-4 provides a higher degree of compression, without a substantial loss of quality.

New DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) incorporate a mechanism for un-encrypting (or decrypting) the content on the disk drive, re-encoding of the content into a format useable by a remote storage or playback device, application of a Digital Rights Management technology associated with an remote storage or playback device, and then transfer of the newly encoded content to a remote location such as a target device.

The majority of remote storage/playback devices now use MPEG-4 as a video encoding format. Soon, most portable devices will utilize the HEVC H.265 encoded format. Thus, the new digital video recorders incorporate special circuitry and/or software that can rapidly convert MPEG-2 TS encoded video to MPEG-4 or HEVC H.265 encoded video.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Conventional storage of content such as storage of content in a digital video recorder suffers from deficiencies. For example, a conventional digital video recorder can receive content encoded in accordance with MPEG-2 as discussed above. The digital video recorder stores the content in the MPEG-2 format on a storage disk of the digital video recorder. Because the MPEG-2 format does not highly compress the data, the disk in the digital video recorder on which the content is stored tends to be used up quickly.

Embodiments herein deviate with respect to conventional techniques. For example, one embodiment herein is directed to more efficient storage and management of content in a repository having limited capacity.

More specifically, one embodiment herein includes a transcoder resource. The transcoder resource retrieves first content stored in a repository. Assume that the first content is encoded in accordance with a first encoding format, EF1. The transcoder resource transcodes the first content retrieved from the repository into second content. In one embodiment, the transcoder resource produces the second content in accordance with a second encoding format, EF2. The transcoder resource140stores the second content (transcoded content) in the repository as a replacement for the first content. Accordingly, embodiments herein include transcoding content stored in a repository from a first encoding format to a second encoding format.

In one embodiment, the second encoding format EF2supports a higher ratio of compression than the first encoding format EF1. In other words, the amount of storage space needed to store the content encoded in accordance with the second encoding format is less than an amount of capacity required to store the content encoded in accordance with the first encoding format. Thus, transcoding from one encoding format to another is useful.

In certain instances, the content encoded in the first encoding format is deleted subsequent to conversion and storage of the content (in the second encoding format) in the repository. Accordingly, conversion of the content from the first encoding format to the second encoding format saves on storage space.

In accordance with further embodiments, a processor resource stores content in a repository. As mentioned, the content stored in the repository initially can be encoded in accordance with a first encoding format. The processor resource can be configured to schedule transcoding of the content into a second encoding format as a background task having lower priority than a main task (such as execution of a particular command) having a higher priority. A content management resource initiates parallel execution of the main processing task and the background task. During parallel processing of the main task and the background task, the content management resource interleaves execution of the main processing task and execution of the background task of transcoding the content into the second encoding format.

In accordance with yet further embodiments, the content management resource can be configured to schedule transcoding of MPEG-2 content into MPEG-4 content. MPEG-4 is a higher density compression format then MPEG-2. This allows for approximately twice the amount of digital content to be stored in the same amount of disk space with almost no loss in fidelity.

As further described herein, the transcoding/transcryption of content as discussed herein can be performed on demand as a high priority task or can be a best efforts background task performed when processing resources are available. Typically, digital video recorders do not continuously record or playback content. In one embodiment, the transcoding as discussed herein occurs during idle times when a main processor is not tasked with other higher priority matters.

These and other embodiments are disclosed in more detail below.

Note that any of the resources as discussed herein can include one or more computerized devices, computer systems, base stations, wireless communication equipment, communication management systems, workstations, handheld or laptop computers, etc., to carry out and/or support any or all of the method operations disclosed herein. In other words, one or more computerized devices or processor hardware can be programmed and/or configured to operate as explained herein to carry out different embodiments of the invention.

Yet other embodiments herein include software programs to perform the steps and operations summarized above and disclosed in detail below. One such embodiment comprises a computer program product including a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (i.e., any physical computer readable hardware storage medium) on which software instructions are encoded for subsequent execution. The instructions, when executed in a computerized device having a processor or logic, program and/or cause the processor to perform the operations disclosed herein. Such arrangements are typically provided as software, code, instructions, and/or other data (e.g., data structures) arranged or encoded on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium such as an optical medium (e.g., CD-ROM), floppy disk, hard disk, memory stick, etc., or other a medium such as firmware or shortcode in one or more ROM, RAM, PROM, etc., or as an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc. The software or firmware or other such configurations can be installed onto a computerized device to cause the computerized device to perform the techniques explained herein.

Accordingly, embodiments herein are directed to a method, system, computer program product, etc., that supports operations as discussed herein.

One or more embodiment includes a computer readable hardware storage medium having instructions stored thereon. The instructions, when executed by a processor (such as processor hardware), cause the processor to: retrieve first content stored in a repository, the first content encoded in accordance with a first encoding format; transcode the first content into second content, the second content encoded in accordance with a second encoding format; and store the second content in the repository as a replacement of the first content.

Another embodiment includes a computer readable hardware storage medium having instructions stored thereon. The instructions, when executed by a processor (such as a hardware processor resource), cause the processor to: store content in a repository, the content encoded in accordance with a first encoding format; schedule transcoding of the content into a second encoding format as a background task; execute a particular command as a main processing task; and interleave execution of the main processing task and the background task of transcoding the content into the second content.

Yet another embodiment includes a computer readable hardware storage medium having instructions stored thereon. The instructions, when executed by a processor (such as processor hardware), cause the processor to: receive content over a shared communication link in a cable network environment, the content encoded in accordance with a first encoding format; encrypt the received content; store the encrypted content in a repository; retrieve the encrypted content stored in the repository; decrypt the retrieved content; transcode the content into a second encoding format; encrypt the transcoded content; and store the encrypted transcoded content in the repository as a replacement of the content encoded in accordance with the first encoding format.

The ordering of the steps above has been added for clarity sake. Note that any of the processing steps as discussed herein can be performed in any suitable order.

Other embodiments of the present disclosure include software programs and/or respective hardware to perform any of the method embodiment steps and operations summarized above and disclosed in detail below.

It is to be understood that the system, method, apparatus, instructions on computer readable storage media, etc., as discussed herein also can be embodied strictly as a software program, firmware, as a hybrid of software, hardware and/or firmware, logic, or as hardware alone such as within a processor, or within an operating system, or a within a software application, etc.

As discussed herein, techniques herein are well suited for management and storage of content. However, it should be noted that embodiments herein are not limited to use in such applications and that the techniques discussed herein are well suited for other applications as well.

Additionally, note that although each of the different features, techniques, configurations, etc., herein may be discussed in different places of this disclosure, it is intended, where suitable, that each of the concepts can optionally be executed independently of each other or in combination with each other. Accordingly, the one or more present inventions as described herein can be embodied and viewed in many different ways.

Also, note that this preliminary discussion of embodiments herein purposefully does not specify every embodiment and/or incrementally novel aspect of the present disclosure or claimed invention(s). Instead, this brief description only presents general embodiments and corresponding points of novelty over conventional techniques. For additional summary and details and/or possible perspectives (permutations) of the invention(s), the reader is directed to the Detailed Description section and corresponding figures of the present disclosure as further discussed below.

