Set-top box peer-assisted video-on-demand

A peer-to-peer (P2P) video-on-demand (VoD) system comprising:

• an IP-enabled VoD controller peer, configured for use in a pool of the peers distributed among a plurality of end-users, the peer comprising:
• an IP-enabled communication port;
• a local video server, configured to be coupled to a local video monitor to serve video content data to the local video monitor for display on the local video monitor;
• a playback module, coupled to the communication port and the local video server, the playback module configured to download, at a first priority from another peer, video content data needed by the local video server for substantially immediate display on the local video monitor;
• a pre-fetch module, coupled to the communication port and the local video server, the pre-fetch module configured to obtain at a second priority from one or more peers, lower than the first priority, video content data for less immediate display on the local video monitor, wherein the peer is configured to allocate remaining communication port download bandwidth not used by the playback module for downloading video content data using the pre-fetch module;
• and
• a data discovery module, including a parent peer memory location configured to designate one other peer in the pool as a parent peer for obtaining from the parent peer video content data with high priority, the parent peer comprising the stored video content data needed by the playback module for the substantially immediate display on the local video monitor, and the data discovery module including an interface configured to communicate with a central tracker to obtain current information about which peers are available.