US 6,760,808 · Granted 2004-07-06

How Avid Built the Traffic Cop for Video Data

Imagine a video editor pulling footage from a bunch of hard drives at once. This patent is the smart system that chops video into pieces, spreads copies across multiple drives, and routes each request to whichever drive isn't busy—so nothing bottlenecks and nothing gets lost if a drive fails.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a method for breaking data into segments, randomly distributing those segments (plus backup copies) across multiple storage units, and then intelligently routing incoming requests to whichever storage unit has the shortest queue. What's protected here is the specific combination of random segment distribution with load-balancing request processing—essentially, the architecture that keeps multiple data streams flowing smoothly without overwhelming any single drive or creating a single point of failure.

Why it matters

For video production and broadcast, this patent solves a real pain point: moving huge files between multiple hard drives and multiple editing stations simultaneously without slowdowns or crashes. Avid was a leader in professional video editing, and this technology let their systems handle the intense, parallel data demands of Hollywood-grade editing suites. The random distribution approach was clever because it avoided hot spots and didn't require users to manually manage which pieces went where.

Real-world use

A film editor in a post-production house pulls 4K footage from the server, another editor renders effects, and a colorist grades a third clip—all at the same time, each drawing from different parts of the same storage cluster without anyone waiting.

Original USPTO abstract

Multiple applications request data from multiple storage units over a computer network. The data is divided into segments and each segment is distributed randomly on one of several storage units, independent of the storage units on which other segments of the media data are stored. At least one additional copy of each segment also is distributed randomly over the storage units, such that each segment is stored on at least two storage units. This random distribution of multiple copies of segments of data improves both scalability and reliability. When an application requests a selected segment of data, the request is processed by the storage unit with the shortest queue of requests. Random fluctuations in the load applied by multiple applications on multiple storage units are balanced nearly equally over all of the storage units. This combination of techniques results in a system which can transfer multiple, independent high-bandwidth streams of data in a scalable manner in both directions between multiple applications and multiple storage units.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,760,808
Filing date: 2002-07-01
Grant date: 2004-07-06
Assignee: Avid Technology, Inc.
Inventor(s): PETERS ERIC C., RABINOWITZ STANLEY, JACOBS HERBERT R., FASCIANO PETER J.
CPC class: H04L67/1097

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