Viasat, Inc.
POPULARITY-AWARE BITRATE ADAPTATION OF LINEAR PROGRAMMING FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

Abstract:

Embodiments provide popularity-based adaptive bitrate management of linear programming over constrained communications links. Embodiments can operate in context of a communications network communicating with multiple mobile client devices disposed in one or more transport craft. A number of channel offerings, including channels providing linear programming, can be made available via the communications network for consumption by the client devices. Embodiments can compute channel popularity scores for the channel offerings based on a predicted popularity, an estimated popularity, a measured popularity, etc. A bitrate can be determined for each (some or all) of the channel offerings based at least in part on its channel popularity score, so that more popular channel offerings can be communicated at higher bitrates. Determined-bitrate instances of the channel offerings can be obtained and/or generated, and delivered via the communications network, to the client devices for consumption.