Intel Corporation

Brendan Traw

Gary L Graunke

Robert W Faber

David A Lee

Michael S Ripley

Carl M Ellison

David Wyatt

Frank T Hady

Richard Paul Mangold

Jay H Connelly

Alan J McPherson

Richard L Maliszewski

James A Moorer

George H Lydecker

John W Carroll

Bruce D Bridges

Stephen P Balogh

A method and apparatus for automatically delivering data files (e.g. television and movies) via a personalized channel to a user, that are based on a user's profile and viewing habits, are provided. A client receives meta-data broadcasts from a server system that includes descriptions of a plurality of data files currently being broadcasted or to be broadcast by the server system. In response to a content rating table that is based on a user's profile and viewing habits, a data file is automatically selected. The selected data file is displayed on a personalized channel on a display device to the user. The selected data file can be, for example, a currently broadcasting data file or a data file stored in a cache memory of the client. Thus, the user only needs to tune to his or her personalized channel to view personalized content.

Method and apparatus to provide a personalized channel

In general, in one aspect, a method is disclosed that includes storing a superset of data available to a client having non volatile memory (NVM) on a distant hard drive. A subset of the data is maintained in the NVM on the client. The client controls the data stored on the distant hard drive and the data maintained in the NVM. A single merged directory/file tree image is generated for the content maintained in the NVM and the distant hard drive that is accessible to a user of the client and applications running thereon.

Aggregation of file/directory structures

Protected content distribution is accomplished by a first entity generating a set of asymmetric key pairs, creating a plurality of sets of private keys by selecting a combination of private keys from the set of asymmetric key pairs for each created set, and distributing the sets of private keys to playback devices. A second entity produces protected content including encrypted content and a public key media key block, encrypts a symmetric content key with each public key in the set of asymmetric key pairs to form the public key media key block and encrypts a content title with the symmetric content key to form the encrypted content. A playback device stores one set of private keys, receives the protected content, and decrypts and plays the content title stored in the protected content when a selected one of the set of private keys stored by the playback device successfully decrypts the encrypted symmetric content key stored in the public key media key block of the received protected content.

Public key media key block

A video source device includes a cipher unit. The video source device uses the cipher unit to generate cipher bits for ciphering video to be transmitted to protect the video from unauthorized copying. The video source device authenticates video receiving devices using a symmetric ciphering/deciphering process that requires the video source device to generate and provide the video receiving device with a pseudo random number as the seed/basis number for the symmetric ciphering/deciphering process. The video source device is further provided with a state machine that controls the cipher unit to generate the required pseudo random number for the video source devices, thereby eliminating the need of having to provide separate circuitry to generate the required pseudo random numbers.

Method and apparatus for generating pseudo random numbers in a video device having an embedded cipher unit

A method and apparatus for determining the scope of a content domain for ensuring that a content stream is not re-routed to an unauthorized display device. The apparatus includes a content source device, which supports multiple display outputs coupled to one or more content sink devices. A content source application generates and provides a content stream to a hardware interface which securely transmits the content stream to a protected content sink device using a content protection protocol. The content source application utilizes certain status information to ensure that the content stream is not re-routed to an unprotected or unapproved content sink device. The source application requests the updated session identification code from the transmitter/codec unit using the content protection protocol which is compared against the expected session identification code to ensure that the content display stream has not been re-routed to an unprotected content sink device.

Method and apparatus for determining scope of content domain

A method and apparatus to protect unencrypted content or data in a storage media from prohibited use or reproduction by encrypting unprotected content before it is transmitted to another device or software application. A compliant device or software application is capable of decrypting the content, detecting any watermark within the content, and accessing or processing the content according to the restrictions associated with the detected watermark. Non-compliant devices or software are prevented from accessing or processing the content since they are unable to decrypt it.

Method and apparatus for content protection across a source-to-destination interface

A video source device and a video repeater device cooperatively authenticates said video repeater apparatus to said video source device. In one embodiment, the authentication is performed using an identical authentication process a video sink device would authenticate itself to the video source device. The video repeater device augment the identical process identifying itself as a repeater device. The video repeater device also in cooperation with at least one video sink device authenticates the at least one video sink device. The video repeater device in turn, in cooperation with the video source device, authenticates the at least one video sink device to the video source device. In one embodiment, the video repeater device also in cooperation with another video repeater device, authenticates yet another at least one video sink device to the video repeater device. In like manner, the video repeater device, in cooperation with the video source device, authenticates the yet another at least one video sink device to the video source device. In one embodiment, the video repeater device includes topological information of the video sink devices among the authentication information provided to the video source device. Accordingly, video sink devices may be hierarchically organized to the video source device.

Method and apparatus for authenticating an hierarchy of video receiving devices

A video source device includes a cipher unit. The cipher unit includes a block cipher and a stream cipher. The video source device uses the block cipher to generate at least one cipher key for use by the stream cipher to generate cipher bits for ciphering video to be transmitted to a video recording device. The video source device further provides n bits of copy control information to the video recording device. The video source device incorporates the n-bit copy control information as part of an initialization value, and initializes a register of a round function of the block cipher with the initialization value. The video recording device also includes a cipher unit of like kind, and operates the block and stream ciphers in like manner to decipher the ciphered video received from the video source device. Upon receiving the n-bit copy control information, the video recording device also forms an initialization value and initializes a corresponding register of the corresponding round function of its block cipher. Accordingly, protection is provided to the copy control information.

Method and apparatus for protecting copy control information provided to a video recording device

A video source application in a video source device requests from a video hardware interface of the video source device status with respect to a link linking the video source device to an external video sink device, and supplements the status request with a first basis value to a symmetric ciphering/deciphering process. The video source application, upon receiving from the video hardware interface the requested status and a verification key, generated using said symmetric ciphering/deciphering process and employing the first basis value, verifies the correctness of the verification key to determine whether to trust said provided status. In like manner, the video source application requests from the video hardware interface a secret the video hardware interface uses to cipher video to be transmitted by the video hardware interface to the external video sink device. The secret request is supplemented with a second basis value to the symmetric ciphering/deciphering process. The secret is returned in a cipher form, ciphered using a ciphering key generated using the second basis value. The video source application deciphers the secret using its own independently generated copy of the ciphering key.

Method and apparatus for protected exchange of status and secret values between a video source application and a video hardware interface

Playback of digital multimedia content by a player application may be modified according to title specific parameters. The method includes accessing the digital multimedia content, accessing title specific parameters associated with the digital multimedia content, and processing the digital multimedia content to render the content to a user according to the title specific parameters. The title specific parameters may be stored with the digital multimedia content on a removable storage medium such as a digital versatile disk (DVD) or received from a source over a computer network, satellite, or cable. The title specific parameters may be used to modify at least one of the decoding, decompressing, and downsampling of at least one track or title of the content. In one embodiment, the content is digital audio data in the DVD-Audio format.

Method and apparatus for multimedia playback with title specific parameters

A video source device provides a basis value to a symmetric ciphering/deciphering process to a video sink device, to which the video source device is to provide a video content. The video source device ciphers the video content for transmission to the video sink device, including generation of a first cipher key through functional transformation of the basis value. The video source device further verifies periodically that the transmitted video content is indeed being symmetrically deciphered by the video sink device. The video sink device practices symmetric deciphering, including generation of a first decipher key through functional transformation of the basis value. The video sink device also provides verification values to the video source device to facilitate confirmation of symmetric deciphering. In one embodiment, the video source and sink devices further authenticate each other, including generation of an authentication key, which is used in the generation of the first cipher/decipher key.

Growing community of inventors

Portland, OR, United States of America

Brendan Traw