Comcast IP Holdings I, LLC

Sedna Patent Services, LLC

Diva Systems Corporation

Cox Communications, Inc.

James B Armstrong

Christopher W B Goode

Stephen R Vogel

Hiep T Nguyen

Muyu Guo

Jesse S Lerman

Robert G Dandrea

Craig T Jorgensen

A method and apparatus for storing and distributing video information in an interactive information distribution system by storing video information on either a centralized or de-centralized secondary storage partition in a network of provider and subscriber equipment, and therein distributing the video information to a subscriber having made a request for such video information.

Method and apparatus for hierarchical distribution of video content for an interactive information distribution system

Apparatus and method providing improved fault tolerance through redundancy of hardware and software suitable for use in a head-end of an interactive information distribution system. Communications between each of a head-end controllers and each of the server modules are coincidentally sent along at least two signal paths to provide to additional fault tolerance in the event one of the signal paths becomes inoperable. In one embodiment, a video switch comprises a plurality of I/O ports coupled between a plurality of server modules and a plurality of subscriber equipment for transferring video information between the server and the subscriber equipment. A primary and secondary switch controller are each coupled to the head-end controllers and the plurality of I/O ports. The primary switch controller is used for routing data packets containing said video information between the plurality of I/O ports. The secondary switch controller monitors status of the primary switch controller and I/O ports, and initiates a switchover event in an instance where the primary switch controller exhibits a failure.

Method and apparatus of load sharing and improving fault tolerance in an interactive video distribution system

A method and apparatus for storing, retrieving and distributing multimedia information having frequently accessed multimedia information stored in solid state memory and less frequently accessed multimedia information stored in a mass storage device.

Method and apparatus for reducing latency in an interactive information distribution system

The invention comprises a method and apparatus for inserting advertisement and/or other information into an audio-video presentation during the presentation of non-active imagery. More specifically, in a case of a user interrupting the standard presentation of a content stream via, for example, pressing a pause or stop button on a remote control device, the size of an image region presently displaying the interrupted content stream is reduced, and advertisement and/or other information is inserted into at least portions of the image region formerly occupied by the interrupted content imagery or overlayed onto the interrupted content imagery.

System enabling user access to secondary content associated with a primary content stream

A method providing integrity analysis of content data streams within an information distribution system. On-demand content is divided into a plurality of content portions to be severally distributed among disk drives of an array of disk drives. A data structure is used for dividing the content into the plurality of content portions. Method is used to check integrity of content prior to provisioning thereof.

Method of performing content integrity analysis of a data stream

A method of accessing an array of storage devices comprising the steps of analyzing a data request from a user to determine the optimal storage device from which data should be retrieved, assigning the user to a first group of users that will access the optimal storage device in a first time period, retrieving data to fulfill the data request from the optimal storage device, and buffering the data in a buffer. Thereafter, the method assigns the user to a second group of users that will be supplied data from the buffer in a second time period, and then retrieving the data from the buffer and transmitting the data to the user to fulfill the data request.

Method and apparatus for accessing an array of data storage devices by selectively assigning users to groups of users

A method and apparatus for minimizing the cumulative seek time required to complete a plurality of sequential disk accesses within a parallel processing computer system. The method and apparatus orders the disk access requests in an order that ensures that all access requests are fulfilled using two passes of the disk arm across the disk. The method requires the disk controllers or the processing elements to store in memory a queue of N disk access requests and issue each request to the disks asynchronously with respect to disk controllers associated with other processing elements. As such, in a SIMD computer, N disk accesses require a total worst case time of N.times..tau..sub.r/w +.tau..sub.seek to complete all the accesses.

Growing community of inventors

Princeton, NJ, United States of America

James B Armstrong