Permutation based pyramid block transmission scheme for broadcasting in video-on-demand storage systems

A method of broadcasting any of audio programs, video programs, audio-visual programs and other programs, for use in a system of a type wherein the programs are broadcast to receiving stations, comprising the steps of:

• repetitively broadcasting to the receiving stations, a given portion of a particular program;
• and,
• repetitively broadcasting to the receiving stations, less frequently than the given portion, subsequent portions of the particular program;
• wherein each portion is of a length which is proportional to a sum of the lengths of all preceding portions.

A method of receiving any of audio programs, video programs, audio-visual programs and other programs, comprising the steps of:

• (a) receiving a transmission comprising repetitive broadcasts of various portions of a particular program wherein data blocks of at least one broadcast of at least one of the portions are temporally permuted as compared to their natural presentation order;
• (b) determining a natural order of the data blocks;
• (c) identifying a next data block required for a natural order presentation of the program to a viewer;
• (d) latching onto the next data block in the natural order from a repetitive broadcast of each portion and skipping other data blocks in the broadcast;
• and,
• (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) for subsequent repetitive broadcasts of each portion until each data block has been latched in the natural order.

A client station for receiving broadcasted multimedia programs for use in a system wherein the multimedia programs are transmitted as a plurality of repetitively broadcast segments and wherein each of the segments includes a number of blocks which can vary in permutation from broadcast to broadcast, comprising:

• a receiver having a channel selector and a block selector;
• the channel selector including means for identifying channels on which a particular program is being broadcast and means for receiving blocks from the channels;
• the block selector, coupled to the channel selector, the block selector including means for determining a natural viewing order of the blocks within each broadcast of a segment;
• a buffer memory, coupled to the block selector, for storing from each broadcast of a segment, a next data block in the natural order;
• and,
• a decoder, connected to receive the data blocks stored in the buffer memory.

A multimedia server, comprising:

• a plurality of disks having data blocks of a multimedia presentation stored thereon;
• a block selector for formatting the multimedia presentation into a plurality of segments, each of the segments including a temporally distinct portion of the multimedia presentation;
• and,
• broadcast means for repetitively broadcasting to the receiving stations a plurality of portions of a multimedia program, each portion being broadcast less frequently than those portions of the multimedia program which are temporally previous in viewing order;
• wherein each of the portions comprise a plurality of data blocks which vary in permutation between one broadcast of the portion and a subsequent broadcast of the portion and wherein each portion is of a longer viewing length than the portions of the multimedia program which are temporally previous in viewing order.