System and method for multicasting multimedia content

2 The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the means for multicasting the packets includes means for transmitting the packets to a multicast receiver of a multicast network.

4 The apparatus of claim 3, further comprising.

• means for receiving requests from a receiver of the multicast for access to a channel's packets,
• means for mapping the requested channel to the multicast addresses that carry the channel's packets, and
• means for requesting authorization for the receiver to access the requested channel's packets.

The apparatus of claim 4, further comprising means for authenticating the requests to ensure that the requests originated from the receiver for which access is being requested.

6 The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the multicast network is a geosynchronous satellite digital TV broadcast system.

7 The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the multicast network is a one-way cable TV network.

8 The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the multicast network is a digital video broadcast (DVB) network.

12 The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising a conditional access system for controlling each receiver's access to packets, wherein each receiver can only access packets which contain multicast addresses which the conditional access system has authorized the receiver to access

The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the means for multicasting the packets is a geosynchronous satellite digital TV broadcast earth station.

The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising:

• means for receiving requests from the receivers to obtain access to a channel's packets,
• means for mapping the requested channel to the multicast addresses that carry the channel's packets, and
• means for authorizing the receivers' access to a channel's packets in response to the receivers' request for access.

29 The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the means for scheduling the assembling of the channel's content comprises means for scheduling the assembling of the base package and means for scheduling the assembling of the delta package.

31 The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the difference compression means further comprises

• means for dividing a URL data item in the delta package into sections, and
• for each section, means for placing into a compressed version of the URL data item, one of a reference to where that section can be found in the base package, or the section of URL data item from the delta package.

37 The apparatus of claim 34, further comprising means for scheduling the assembling of base packages and delta packages, wherein the base packages and delta packages are assembled according to the schedule.

54 The apparatus of claim 52, wherein the record contains a field uniquely identifying the user that accessed the URL data item

The apparatus of claim 54, wherein the field uniquely identifying the user does not specific the identity of the user

The apparatus of claim 54, wherein the field uniquely identifying the user specifies [he identity of the user.

67 The method of claim 66, further comprising the step of authenticating the requests to ensure that the requests originated from the receiver for which access is being requested.

70 The method of claim 68, wherein a channel's content includes indexing information which allows URL data items contained within the channel's content to be quickly looked up by the receiver which receives the channel's content, the method further comprising the steps of.

• scheduling a configurable number of retransmissions of the channel's previously assembled content;
• specifying a transmission rate of the channel's content, and fragmenting and transmitting the channel's content to the receivers
• according to the schedule at the specified transmission rate.

89 The method of claim 88, where in base package packets are scheduled for transmission at a time when the receiver is not likely to be in use for other applications.

94 The method of claim 93, wherein the reference to where the section of URL data item can be found in the base package is an offset from a beginning of the URL to a first byte and an offset to a last byte being referenced.

96 The method of claim 86, further comprising the step of assembling a second delta package that contains URL data items that have changed since the assembling of the previous delta package

101 The method of claim 97, wherein the usage reports contain information identifying each URL data item, from the stored URL data items, being delivered to a web browser.

110 The method of claim 107, wherein the web server is notified of multiple accesses of multiple URL data items by initiating an HTTP PUT operation.

The receiver of claim l 14, wherein the channel's content is stored in a number of files, and wherein the number of files is less than the total number of URL data items in the channel

128 The receiver of claim 114, wherein the receiver comprises a personal computer.

131 The receiver of claim 114, further comprising:

• means for determining when a URL data item requested to be accessed by the user is not present within the stored channel content,
• means for notifying the user that the requested URL data item is not present within the stored channel content, and
• means for allowing the user to access the non-present URL data item via a connection to a TCP/IP network.

The receiver of claim 131, wherein the TCP/IP network comprises the Internet.

133 The receiver of claim 131, further comprising means for soliciting the user whether to access the non-present URL data item via the connection to the TCP/IP network.

136 The receiver of claim 135, further comprising means for reporting the tracked user accesses to a web site from which the accessed URL data items were assembled.

The receiver of claim 139, wherein the URL data item is decompressed a first time the user access the URL data item and further comprising means for storing the decompressed URL data item

The receiver of claim 139, wherein the URL data item is decompressed each time a user access the URL data item.

142 The receiver of claim 139, wherein the multicast network transmits a channel's content in base package packets and delta package packets, and the means for assembling the base package packets into a complete base package and assembling the delta package packets into a complete delta package.

The receiver of claim 142, wherein the means for storing the channel's content stores the complete base package for the channel and the complete delta package for the channel.

The receiver of claim 142, wherein the means for allowing a user to access the stored channel's content provides the user with a URL data item from a delta package when the URL data item is present in a delta package and provides the user a URL data item from a base package when the URL data item is not present in a delta package

The receiver of claim 145, wherein the URL data items are assembled from a web site and further comprising means for reporting the tracked user access to the web site

The receiver of claim 145, wherein the tracking means includes means for counting a number of times the user accesses a subset of the stored URL data items.

The receiver of claim 145, further comprising

• means for determining when a URL data item requested to be accessed by the user is not present within the stored URL data items,
• means for notifying the user that the requested URL data item is not present within the stored URL data items, and
• means for allowing the user to access the non-present URL data item via a connection to a TCP/IP network.

A receiver in a multicast system, comprising.

• means for monitoring receiver activity;
• and
• means for selectively receiving content from a multicast network, wherein the content is selectively received based on the monitored receiver activity

The receiver of claim 159, wherein the user specifications include time of day when content should be received.

164 The receiver of claim 161, wherein the monitoring means determines that reception will not interfere with other activity by monitoring user activity on an input device of the receiver.

The receiver of claim 164, wherein the receiver is a personal computer and the user activity comprises clicks on a mouse input device

A receiver in a multicast system, comprising

• a package receiver for receiving packets containing URL data items from a multicast network and assembling the received packets into a channel, wherein the channel comprises a set of URL data items;
• a memory for storing the channel, and
• a content viewer for allowing a user to request access to and access the URL data items in the stored channel

175 The system of claim 174, wherein a receiver uses the electronic program guide to subscribe to selected web sites and the system further comprises a registration server for tracking subscription information.

The system of claim 175, wherein the registration server provides the subscription information to the package delivery subsystem.

186 The system of claim 184, wherein the multicast network multicasts the base packages and the delta packages according to a schedule.

The system of claim 186, wherein the base packages are scheduled for multicasting at a time when the receiver is not likely to be in use for other applications