Cisco Technology, Inc.

Gil C Cruz

Flemming Andreasen

Nick George Pope

John Pickens

Xiaomei Liu

Mahesh Chakravarthy Vittal Viveganandhan

Alexander Katsnelson

Shane Ruman

Malcolm B Ferguson

Neil Black

Matt Collum

A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes establishing a connection between a first client and a messaging fabric of a conductor element associated with a video system; receiving a request to perform a companion service with a second client; authenticating the first client via a client directory based on an identifier associated with the first client; receiving a pair message from the first client for the second client; and verifying whether the two clients can be paired in order to perform the companion service. Companion service commands can be authorized/policy checked and resulting commands on the second client may appear as-if they had been triggered locally.

System and method for enabling pairing of a companion device with a mate device for performing a companion device

A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes establishing a connection between a client and a messaging fabric associated with a video system that includes a metadata broker element; storing metadata information associated with content, where the content is associated with a release uniform resource locator (URL); and generating a content guide, (e.g., an electronic program guide) that includes a plurality of content definitions (e.g., channels). A particular content (e.g., program) in the content guide is associated with a particular release URL that can be translated into a more specific URL based on a number of criteria.

System and method for unified metadata brokering and policy-based content resolution in a video architecture

System and method for enabling pairing of a companion device with a mate device for performing a companion service

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a content receiver, a concurrent streamer coupled to the content receiver, and a protocol engine coupled to the concurrent streamer. The content receiver receives an ingest stream of media content from a media source in response to a request for the media content from a local host. The concurrent streamer sends at least a portion of a local stream of the media content to the local host concurrent with the reception of the ingest stream of the media content by the content receiver. The protocol engine sends a protocol element from the network media server to the local host. The protocol element indicates an ingest status of the ingest stream at the content receiver.

Reporting status of remote media ingest

A technique for supporting over-the-top video-on-demand separates metadata ingest and real content ingest such that navigation needs only the metadata ingest to have been completed. The real content ingest can occur later if the navigation results in the real content being selected and if the selected content has not been ingested already. Additionally, content identifiers with limited range are used over and over to identify a practically unlimited range of available over-the-top content by mapping virtual content identifiers to dynamic content. The content metadata and real content ingest are synchronized on a video-on-demand system using the dynamically allocated content identifiers. Playlists can be virtualized with a logical content identifier which maps to a list of virtual content identifiers. Existing video-on-demand infrastructures can simultaneously support both static and dynamic content with preexisting video-on-demand back offices and video-on-demand clients.

Dynamic video-on-demand navigation and on demand ingest

Growing community of inventors

Hampton, NJ, United States of America

Gil C Cruz