International Business Machines Corporation

James W Eldridge

Norman Ken Ouchi

Howard Thomas Olnowich

James T Brady

Roger Lee Haskin

Yoram Novick

Christopher S Murray

William Russell Belknap

Stephen Gouze Luning

Oded Cohn

Frank L Stein

Joe-Ming Cheng

Ashok Raj Saxena

Buddy F Stansbury

David William Davenport

Danit Segev

Henry Dexter Chadwick

Leonard DeGollado

Leung Ping Lee

Larry William Fitchett

Karl David Schubert

Jeffrey Lloyd Weiner

Gregory Allen Poist

Joseph C Awad

David G Foote

Louise Irene Cleary

Michael Joseph Flynn

Buddy Floyd Stansbury

A fault tolerant multimedia program distribution system includes a number of controllers for transmitting instances of predetermined multimedia program information to a communications network at predetermined times, a storage system for storing the multimedia program information, and a multiple access storage control device which allows multiple access to the storage system by more than one distribution controller at any time.

Apparatus for fault-tolerant multimedia program distribution

A media streamer (10) includes at least one storage node (16, 17) for storing a digital representation of a video presentation. The Video presentation requires a time T to present in its entirety, and is stored as a plurality of N data blocks, each data block storing data corresponding approximately to a T/N period of the video presentation. The media streamer further includes a plurality of communication nodes (14) each having at least one input port and at least one output port; a circuit switch (18) connected between the at least one storage node and input ports of the plurality of communication nodes, the circuit switch selectively coupling one or more of the input ports to the at least one storage node to enable the digital representation stored thereat to appear at one or more of the output ports; and at least one control node (18) coupled at least to the plurality of communication nodes and to the at least one storage node for enabling any one of the N blocks to appear at any output port of any of the plurality of communication nodes.

Media streamer with control node enabling same isochronous streams to

A method for operating a data storage system that is comprised of at least one disk. The method includes a step of partitioning a data compression unit into n basic compression units, where n is greater than one. Each data compression unit is comprised of a plurality of disk sectors and each of n basic compression units begins with a different initial sector. A next step partitions the data compression unit into X intervals, where X is less than n. Each of the X intervals begins with a different initial sector and within one of the n basic compression units. Further steps of the method include storing, external to the at least one disk, a plurality of first pointers each of which points to the initial sector of one of the n basic compression units wherein the 1/X, 2/X, . . . , (X-1)/X intervals begin; storing, within each of the initial sectors of the individual ones of the n basic compression units wherein the 1/X, 2/X, . . . , (X-1)/X intervals begin, a second pointer to the initial sector of the interval that begins within the basic compression unit; and, in response to a disk read operation that reads a compressed data unit that begins with one of the sectors that is located within one of the X intervals, accessing the beginning sector of the compressed data unit in accordance with one of the first pointers and one of the second pointers. The step of allocating includes a step of determining an actual compression ratio for the record, determining a value of a longest run of identical characters within the record, and adjusting the actual compression ratio based on the value of the longest run of identical characters. The step of allocating also includes a step of adding at least one additional sector to the estimated number to enable the compressed record to be subsequently updated in place.

System for storing pointers to initial sectors of variable length n

Storage media defect areas that are too large to be managed by ECC processing alone and sufficiently small that read/write head clock synchronization can be maintained over the defect area, are managed by a fill pattern recording scheme in which an offset register indicates the beginning of a defect area and a fill pattern is recorded over the defect area while ECC processing is halted. Data recording is resumed after the defect area is passed. In this way, the number of times sector skipping must be used for a storage media is reduced, thereby making more efficient use of the storage media surface area.

Apparatus and method for recording over defects in storage media

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

James W Eldridge