Abstract: A method for accessing triple play services provided through a server over a network to a portable device, the method comprising: receiving a signal from a user defining respective preference levels for the triple play services; determining a location for the portable device; determining which of the triple play services are available at the location; composing a list of available services at the location, the available services in the list being ordered in accordance with the respective preference levels; and, displaying the list on a display screen of the portable device, whereby the user may access the available services by selecting from the list.

Abstract: The PIP system enables display of a mosaic of favorite channels in a Picture-in-Picture (PIP) format to a subscriber terminal. Picture-in-Picture support is efficiently provided by sending only I-Frames of the secondary video channel to the end-user. That is, any unnecessary packets (null, B-P frames, audio, etc.) in the secondary video channel are stripped away. This method uses very little bandwidth and is STB agnostic.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer readable medium for a customer premises equipment based advertisement insertion mechanism for Internet Protocol based networks, comprises, storing advertisements in a customer premises equipment, detecting an advertisement insertion signal in a data stream, and multiplexing the stored advertisements into the data stream upon the detecting of the advertisement insertion signal.

Abstract: A circular buffer in a video delivery server tracks a second copy of a live video stream to provide instant replay capability. When an end-user initiates the instant replay function, the circular buffer is copied to an instant-replay buffer, from which a replay of the video is sent to the end-user. During replay the end-user can use playback functions such as pause, slow-play, freeze frame, etc. Upon leaving the replay function the end user rejoins the live stream. The circular buffer also enables transmission of delayed copies of the live stream, time-shifted by predetermined intervals, which copies are multicasted to end-users. Upon request, an end-user may join a delayed version of interest. This allows the user to replay interesting content by jumping to a time-delayed version without missing the show and to catch up with real-time during e.g. commercial breaks.

Abstract: In a system that provides decoding of A/V streams, this invention reduces switching delays between different streams by modifying the Program Identification (PID) values of the Audio and Video data to common PID values that are already known by the decoder. This technique allows the decoder to stay in a run state when switching between A/V streams, thereby reducing channel change times.

Abstract: A server at the edge of a broadband network distributes multimedia content streams to clients, while ensuring that the first data delivered to each client is key data (milestones) needed for correctly decoding the stream content. This is obtained by buffering the packets in the incoming stream and transmitting the packets from the buffer in an outgoing stream, starting with the most recent milestone placed in the buffer before a request to join the respective incoming stream is received. As the writing to and reading from the buffer are performed at different rates, the incoming and outgoing streams are eventually synchronized, at which point the client may be switched to receive the incoming stream directly.

Abstract: The multimedia content delivery system is a low-cost enabler for many MPEG-based applications enabling the subscribers to play multicast MPEG streams. A plurality of files with MPEG encoded multimedia content are stored at a server and streamed to the subscribers using a multithreaded processing system (or MPEG sender). The sender operates in a snoop mode or in an open loop mode. In the snoop mode, a main thread performs an IGMP snoop looking for membership reports (leave, join, change channel), and configures a plurality of sender threads based on these reports. Each sender thread transmits a multicast data stream with encoded multimedia content from a respective file to a corresponding multicast address. In the open loop mode, the sender transmits multicast data streams to all multicast addresses continuously.

Abstract: Systems and devices for providing multiple video signals simultaneously to an end user. Multiple video tuners are each tuned to a different video signal at a content provider's location. The output of each tuner is then received by a video multiplexer which multiplexes the disparate video signals into a single composite video signal. The resulting composite video signal, which presents the different video signals in a grid pattern with each sector in the grid phoning a different video signal, is then provided with a suitable user interface. The user interface provides such information such as the source of each of the video signals and allows an end user to navigate between the different video signals. The resulting composite video signal with its user interface, is then encoded and transmitted to an end user device by way of a network. An end user, using the end user device, can therefore simultaneously view multiple video signals without the need for switching channels.