Alcatel Lucent

Imagictv, Inc.

Gino Louis Dion

Alistair John Parker

Sean Gordon Higgins

Jeff Furlong

David Cecil Robinson

Richard Bettelheim

Christian Van Boven

Alistair John Paeker

A server at the edge of a broadband network distributes multimedia content streams to clients, while ensuring that the first data delivered to each client is key data (milestones) needed for correctly decoding the stream content. This is obtained by buffering the packets in the incoming stream and transmitting the packets from the buffer in an outgoing stream, starting with the most recent milestone placed in the buffer before a request to join the respective incoming stream is received. As the writing to and reading from the buffer are performed at different rates, the incoming and outgoing streams are eventually synchronized, at which point the client may be switched to receive the incoming stream directly.

Milestone synchronization in broadcast multimedia streams

In a system that provides decoding of A/V streams, this invention reduces switching delays between different streams by modifying the Program Identification (PID) values of the Audio and Video data to respective PID values that are already known by the decoder. This technique allows the decoder to stay in a run state when switching between A/V streams, thereby reducing channel change times.

Client side PID translation

The PIP system enables display of a mosaic of favorite channels in a Picture-in-Picture (PIP) format to a subscriber terminal. Picture-in-Picture support is efficiently provided by sending only I-Frames of the secondary video channel to the end-user. That is, any unnecessary packets (null, B-P frames, audio, etc.) in the secondary video channel are stripped away. This method uses very little bandwidth and is STB agnostic.

Picture-in-picture mosaic

Methods, devices and systems for providing content providers with a secure way to multicast their data flows only to legitimate end users. By making a specific decision for each potentially legitimate end user requesting a specific data flow, differing subscriber profiles may be taken into account. Furthermore, end to end encryption is avoided by having a switch and/or router control the specific data flow to a specific end user. Each end user sends a request DTU to the switch and/or router asking for permission to join a multicast group. The switch and/or router extracts identification data from the request data transmission unit (DTU) and determines whether the requesting end user is cleared for the requested specific data flow. This determination may be made by sending a query DTU containing the identification data to a policy server which checks the identification data against preprogrammed criteria in its databases. The policy server then sends a response DTU to the switch and/or router confirming or denying the authenticity or legitimacy of the request based on the identification data. In the meantime, after the switch and/or router sends the query DTU to the policy server, the switch and/or router allows the specific requested data flow to proceed to the requesting end user. If, based on the response from the policy server, the request is determined to not be legitimate or authentic, the specific data flow is terminated. If the request is legitimate or authentic, then the data flow is allowed to flow uninterrupted by the switch and/or router.

Growing community of inventors

McKinney, TX, United States of America

Gino Louis Dion