System and methods for error tolerant content delivery over multicast channels

Abstract

In one embodiment of the invention, a system and method for error tolerant delivery of data is provided. A data file is received for transmission which includes metadata and data. The metadata includes mandatory portions and optional portions, which are grouped together, respectively. The mandatory portions of the metadata include file control data. The file is parsed into packets and transmitted as a data stream to a plurality of receiver devices. In some cases this data stream may be transmitted multiple times for redundancy. Once the data stream is received, the receiver device may look for transmission errors in the control data of the data stream. If such an error is present the data stream is discarded; otherwise, the receiver device converts the data stream back into the native file format and stored for later playback or queued processing. In some other embodiments, a data rights management (DRM) file is encrypted using a master key, which, in turn, is encrypted with a unique encryption key for each copy of the file. The unique encryption corresponds to a single target receiver. The system may bifurcate each data file into the common encrypted content and the uniquely encrypted portion. The commonly encrypted portion of the file may be transmitted to a plurality of receiver devices using a multicast transmission medium, and the relatively small uniquely encrypted portions may be transmitted in a unicast method to each receiver individually. The receiver device may then reconstitute the DRM data file.