Streaming Patent Buoys RealNetworks

rishimathew writes writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that RealNetworks recently received a patent for a specific way to stream multimedia content over the internet. From the article: "The patent, which is described as being for a 'multimedia communications system and method for providing audio on demand to subscribers' (No. 6,985,932), describes the idea of permitting a PC user to play back audio, video and other information on a PC. RealNetworks executives said the technology was distinguished from other similar systems by the fact that it permitted "intelligent" streaming of data in potentially congested networks."

Comments

Patents stink

[LiquidCoooled]

How the hell can the patent office survive for so much longer?

This Real patent is just stupid "Click to stream", I'm actually wondering whether its announcement comes on the back of the changes Microsoft made to force people to click to activate?

They should be bouyed up by the yellow stream coming out of every web developers *censored* as they piss all over them with newer improved methods for getting the data across.

On that score, does anyone know which sites use Helix so I can blacklist them? (hosts format would be nice ;))

The article also mentions that Real shouldn't even have it anyway:

The new patent is known as a continuation patent, with additional claims based on an original filing in November 1994. One of the challenges that will confront RealNetworks in enforcing the patent is an earlier one owned by Apple Computer. Apple applied for a patent related to its QuickTime technology for streaming media in May 1994, before RealNetworks' first filing. The Apple patent, No. 5,561,670, for "method and apparatus for operating a multicast system on an unreliable network," was issued in October 1996. It appears the patent office examiners did not consider it in their evaluation of the RealNetworks patent.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I think

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they patented the "fallback" scheme of streaming server/client.

When your network goes havoc the 128kbit realaudio/video falls down to 96kbit first, than 64kbit etc. The trick is it also somehow "senses" the network lag has been fixed and it goes back to the normal level.

That is half of the reason why on movie trailer sites you see multiple stream rates for windows media and one stream link (unified) for real media. The other reason is the "layered" way of doing things in realmedia. A single file can have multiple bitrates.

These are things they invented or not, I don't really care. I don't also like the "patenting" of such things. There should be a way to make it free for opensource community implementing and not to Microsoft.

Helix open source leg can do it?

As I got my lesson from last time, posting as AC. Sorry :)

Re:I think

[ScrewMaster]

This is ridiculous. Modems have have had fall back and fall forward for years, by "intelligently" sensing line conditions and adjusting automatically for maximum throughput. This is hardly "novel". Has anyone actually seen a truly novel patent recently? I'd just like to know that people are still filing them.

Real or Relevant?

[Eberlin]

By Intelligent streaming, they mean it'll take over your machine and feed you adware AFTER getting the run-around on how to download the free version and signing away your firstborn, that is.

Am I bitter? Yeah. Real was fairly innovative in the day and though Media Player had its part in shrinking the marketshare, it wasn't like Real didn't get pushy and lamer after a while. How's that OSS deal they had (was it helixcode?) going nowadays anyway?

In other news, I wouldn't be surprised if the patent actually pertains to a streaming download occasionally interrupted by the word "Buffering" followed by 3 ellipses.

Re:Oh, boy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant:

Cue an avalanche of "Buffering..." jokes in 3... 2...Buffering... 1...

Re:Vague? Only at NYT

[xiando]

"Abstract

An audio-on-demand communication system provides real-time playback of audio data transferred via telephone lines or other communication links. One or more audio servers include memory banks which store compressed audio data. At the request of a user at a subscriber PC, an audio server transmits the compressed audio data over the communication link to the subscriber PC. The subscriber PC receives and decompresses the transmitted audio data in less than real-time using only the processing power of the CPU within the subscriber PC. According to one aspect of the present invention, high quality audio data compressed according to lossless compression techniques is transmitted together with normal quality audio data. According to another aspect of the present invention, metadata, or extra data, such as text, captions, still images, etc., is transmitted with audio data and is simultaneously displayed with corresponding audio data. The audio-on-demand system also provides a table of contents indicating significant divisions in the audio clip to be played and allows the user immediate access to audio data at the listed divisions. According to a further aspect of the present invention, servers and subscriber PCs are dynamically allocated based upon geographic location to provide the highest possible quality in the communication link." http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6985932&O S=6985932&RS=6985932 The term 'intelligent' is no where to be found in the text of the actual patent, that's just the term RealNetworks used to explain how the program which apparently does little but show the fancy text message "Buffering" works.

Ogg Vorbis Bitrate Peeling

[fossa]

Ogg Vorbis supports bitrate peeling, but it is not currently implemented. Apparently RealNetwork's SureStream encodes a given file at multiple bitrates resulting in a fat file, while bitrate peeling only needs a single encoding. Real's patent appears to be on the streaming logic to actually switch bitrate though, not the storage of bits in a file.

Re:Real gets streaming patent, includes with FOSS

[mikiN]

The patent covers Real's groundbreaking technology innovations dating back to November 1994, four months before the introduction of RealAudio, which forever changed the Web by bringing streaming audio to the Internet for the first time.

Not to be rude, as you may fool some younger Slashdotters, but not me. Fact is, there were streaming audio solutions on the Internet well before 1994. How do I know? Well, I took part in the development of one of them, and helped with the porting effort of several others.

I'll keep the list of examples short and sweet, others may add as they please.

AudioFile
The Network Audio System (NAS)

Note: These systems, as were several others, were OSS right from the start.