Method and system of providing signals

• US 8,505,064 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2005
• Issued: 08/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ngna LLC
• Original Assignee: Ngna LLC
• Inventors: Hildebrand, John G, Gonzalez, Francisco, Fahrny, James, Seiden, Joshua
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEN, CAI Y
• Application Number:
  US10/597,574
• Publication Number:
  US 20080263623A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,109 Days
• Field of Search: 725/82
• US Class Current: 725/152
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23608 Remultiplexing multiplex streams, e.g. involving modifying time stamps or remapping the packet identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2381 Adapting the multiplex stream to a specific network, e.g. an Internet Protocol [IP] network transmission of MPEG streams over ATM H04L12/5601
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42676 for modulating an analogue carrier signal to encode digital information or demodulating it to decode digital information, e.g. ADSL or cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/437 Interfacing the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. for transmitting client requests to a VOD server flow control in data networks H04L47/10; streaming protocols, e.g. RTP or RTCP, H04L65/65; scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests in data packet switching networks H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6118 involving cable transmission, e.g. using a cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6168 involving cable transmission, e.g. using a cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6437 Real-time Transport Protocol [RTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17309 Transmission or handling of upstream communications

Abstract

A method and system of supporting operation of customer equipment in systems having at least a portion of their signals being transported according to standards which are not supported by the customer equipment.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

demultiplexing a first digital transport stream to recover first and second digital payloads that were each carried in the first digital transport stream prior to said demultiplexing;

transporting the second digital payload to a transcoder upon determining that a protocol in which the second digital payload is formatted is not in a set of one or more supported protocols;

bypassing the transcoder and transporting the first digital payload to a multiplexer upon determining that a protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted is in the set of one or more supported protocols;

transcoding, at the transcoder, the second digital payload to be formatted in the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted; and

multiplexing, at the multiplexer, the first digital payload and the transcoded second digital payload to create a second digital transport stream.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted is older than the protocol in which the second digital payload is formatted, and the second digital payload is transcoded to the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted is less compressive than the protocol in which the second digital payload is formatted, and the second digital payload is transcoded to the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising decrypting conditional access (CA) encryption of the first digital transport stream prior to said demultiplexing.

5. The method claim 4, wherein decrypting the CA encryption of the first digital transport stream is performed in a settop box (STB).

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the steps of demultiplexing the first digital transport stream, transcoding the second digital payload, and multiplexing the first and transcoded second digital payloads occur in a card inserted into a card slot of a first interface device.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising decoding copy protection of the first digital transport stream in the card and prior to said demultiplexing, transcoding, and multiplexing.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising encoding copy protection to the second digital transport stream.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising transmitting the copy protection encoded second digital transport stream from the card to the first interface device.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

analyzing the first digital payload to identify the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted;

wherein transcoding the second digital payload is dependent upon identifying the protocol in which the first digital payload is formatted.

10. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a device, a first digital transport stream that contains first digital payloads that are each formatted in a first protocol and second digital payloads that are each formatted in a second protocol, wherein the first digital payloads and the second digital payloads are multiplexed together in the first digital transport stream;

demultiplexing, at the device, the first digital transport stream to recover the first digital payloads and the second digital payloads;

analyzing the first digital payloads and the second digital payloads to determine that the first protocol is dissimilar from the second protocol;

selecting, dependent upon the first protocol'"'"'s association with the first digital payloads, the first protocol for use when transcoding the second digital payloads;

transcoding each of the second digital payloads to produce transcoded second digital payloads that are each formatted in the first protocol; and

multiplexing the first digital payloads with the transcoded second digital payloads to create a second digital transport stream.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

prior to said demultiplexing, decoding the first digital transport stream to remove copy protection; and

after multiplexing, encoding the second digital transport stream to add copy protection.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

prior to said demultiplexing and prior to said decoding, encoding the first digital transport stream to add copy protection;

after multiplexing and after encoding the second digital transport stream, decoding the second digital transport stream to remove copy protection; and

after decoding the second digital transport stream, demultiplexing the second digital transport stream to recover the first and transcoded second digital payloads.

19. The method of claim 10, further comprising transmitting the second digital transport stream to a device that is configured to receive digital transport streams containing digital payloads formatted in the first protocol.

13. An apparatus, comprising:

a first demultiplexor configured to demultiplex a first digital transport stream to recover first digital payloads that are each formatted in a first protocol and second digital payloads that are each formatted in a second protocol that is different from the first protocol, wherein the first digital payloads and the second digital payloads were multiplexed together in the first digital transport stream prior to said demultiplexing;

a transcoder configured to transcode each of the second digital payloads to be formatted in the first protocol, wherein the first protocol is selected for use when transcoding the second digital payloads dependent upon the first protocol'"'"'s association with the first digital payloads; and

a multiplexor configured to multiplex the first digital payloads with the transcoded second digital payloads to create a second digital transport stream.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:

a first copy protection decoder configured to decode the first digital transport stream to remove copy protection; and

a first copy protection encoder configured to encode the second digital transport stream received from the multiplexor to add copy protection.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising:

a second copy protection encoder configured to encode the first digital transport stream to add copy protection and transmit it to the first copy protection decoder;

a second copy protection decoder configured to decode the second digital transport stream received from the first copy protection encoder, so as to remove copy protection; and

a second demultiplexor configured to demultiplex the second digital transport stream received from the second copy protection decoder, to separate the first digital payloads from the transcoded second digital payloads.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the demultiplexor, the transcoder, and the multiplexor are on a first hardware module that is configured to be inserted into a receiver device that is configured to decode digital payloads formatted in the first protocol.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the demultiplexor, the transcoder, the multiplexor, the first copy protection encoder, and the first copy protection decoder are on a first hardware module that is configured to be inserted into a second hardware module that is configured to decode digital payloads formatted in the first protocol.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the demultiplexor, the transcoder, the multiplexor, the first copy protection encoder, and the first copy protection decoder are on a first hardware module that is configured to communicate with a second hardware module that contains the second copy protection encoder, the second copy protection decoder, and the second demultiplexor.