Abstract: For use in a communications network having a source and destination endpoint that employs a video transmission protocol in which the destination endpoint of a video stream receives a release command from the source endpoint of the video stream to begin displaying the video stream, the destination endpoint normally receiving the release command only after completion of a capabilities negotiation between the destination endpoint and the source endpoint, a system for, and method of, multicasting the video stream from the source endpoint to at least one destination endpoint.

Abstract: Various aspects of an interactive multimedia system and associated methods. In general, the multimedia system employs central and peripheral hubs that function to provide services to a plurality of clients of a call manager server, or manager subsystem. The hubs and subsystem cooperate to serve requests originating in the plurality of clients. The client-server-client architecture allows for distributed processing and resource management. Redundant connections between the various network subsystems and hubs provide survivability. Each subsystem or hub is provided with the ability to initialize or recover from systemic errors, thereby distributing initialization and recovery. Certain of the distributed resources are capable of being managed from other subsystems, thereby allowing sharing of the resources. An open numbering plan allows efficient call treatment of dialed numbers. Call processing is sharable between multiple manager subsystems.