Methods and Apparatus for Weighted Multicasting of Data Streams
First Claim
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1. In a telecommunications network having a source of a data stream and a recipient of said data stream, the improvement comprising:
- a multicast engine coupled to the source of the data stream and to the recipient of the data stream; and
a multicast table associated with said multicast engine, wherein said multicast table indicates whether or not the data stream is forwarded to the recipient and if it is forwarded indicates at least two different manners of forwarding the data stream.
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Abstract
A multicast table which associates data streams with recipients has more values than zero and one. By making this change in multicast tables, several interesting applications can be implemented. Applications include digital TV transmission, combined transmission of different bandwidth signals, video conferencing applications and mirror web server updating applications.
19 Citations
21 Claims
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1. In a telecommunications network having a source of a data stream and a recipient of said data stream, the improvement comprising:
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a multicast engine coupled to the source of the data stream and to the recipient of the data stream; and a multicast table associated with said multicast engine, wherein said multicast table indicates whether or not the data stream is forwarded to the recipient and if it is forwarded indicates at least two different manners of forwarding the data stream. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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6. The improvement according to claim 6, wherein:
the hybrid MPEG stream includes both TV and HDTV components. - View Dependent Claims (7)
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12. A method of multicasting a data stream, comprising:
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transmitting the data stream to a multicast engine; associating a multicast table with the multicast engine; coupling the multicast engine to a plurality of destinations; transmitting the data stream from the multicast engine to one or more of the plurality of destinations according to one or more entries made in the multicast table, wherein said one or more entries is one of at least three different values, the values indicating do not forward, forward in a first manner, and forward in a second manner. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. In a telecommunications network having a source of a video stream and a recipient of said video stream, the improvement comprising:
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a multicast engine coupled to the source of the video stream and to the recipient of the video stream; and a multicast table associated with said multicast engine, wherein said multicast table indicates whether or not the video stream is forwarded to the recipient and if it is forwarded indicates whether all of the video stream is forwarded or only some of the video stream is forwarded. - View Dependent Claims (19)
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20. A method of multicasting a video stream, comprising:
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transmitting the video stream to a multicast engine; associating a multicast table with the multicast engine; coupling the multicast engine to a plurality of destinations; transmitting the video stream from the multicast engine to one or more of the plurality of destinations according to one or more entries made in the multicast table, wherein said one or more entries is one of at least three different values, the values indicating do not forward, forward all of the video stream, and forward only part of the video stream. - View Dependent Claims (21)
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Specification