Thomson Licensing

Thomson Licensing S.a.

Philippe Letellier

Eric Diehl

Pierre Houeix

Ralf Schaefer

Jean-Francois Fleury

St&eacute;phane Morcel

Aline Caranicolas

The present invention relates to a method for receiving audiovisual programs sent by a server to at least two reception devices. Initially, a first user requests a document from the server that establishes a unicast stream to download said document. Then, a second user requests to receive the same document, even truncated by a part. The server studies the proposal and possibly, for a lower price, agrees to the download. The server then switches the broadcast of the document from a unicast stream to a multicast stream, the first and second devices receiving said document via the same multicast stream. The invention also relates to a device for receiving audiovisual content and a server for implementing the method.

Reception of audio-visual content addressed to several devices

An information processing system or a digital decoder () makes it possible to process data originating from at least one application (), for example, by way of a bouquet of television programs, and comprises an operating system (), a virtual machine () and an application manager () executing one or more variable management instruction sets () so as to influence the operating system () and the virtual machine () during the execution of the application.

Applications manager with variable management instruction set

The invention is to be used in the Digital Video Broadcasting&mdash;Common Interface environment for accessing the Conditional Access Module (CAM). The host application handles objects of the Conditional Access (CA) through a private Application Program Interface (API). Each CAM may have its own private CA API but the data channel remains identical whatever the CAM is. This new mode coexists with the two already defined modes: low level Man Machine Interface, and high level Man Machine Interface. If a Set top Unit &ldquo;understands&rdquo; the private CA Application Program Interface (API), then it may access the features of the plugged CA through its private CA API Protocol. Otherwise, it remains on the standard API. With this extension, an STU can have a Conditional Access User Interface which perfectly fits into the overall User Interface of the STU. Thus b broadcaster can ensure that its look and feel are respected on its STUs. A manufacturer can build an STU especially optimized for a given or a plurality of Cas but still able to run other CAs.

Method and apparatus for enlarging DVB-CI functionality by enabling a direct access to the conditional access module

Growing community of inventors

Saint Grégoire, France

Philippe Letellier