Managing Internet Protocol (IP) flows to produce multi-connection communication is contemplated, such as but not necessarily limited to managing a single IP flow simultaneously through disparate physical layers (PHYs). A unification sublayer may be configured as a logical interface between a network layer and a data link layer and/or the disparate PHYs to facilitating partitioning of IP packets included in the IP flow.

Methods and apparatus for selectively enforcing required insertion or viewing of secondary content, such as advertisements or promotions, in a content distribution network. In one embodiment, the network is a managed network (e.g., cable television, satellite, or the like), and the method includes identifying secondary content with a particular attribute or property (e.g., an advertisement that a user has watched before), and selectively enabling one or more “trick mode” functions relating to that secondary content. In one implementation, audio codes or watermarks are inserted into the secondary content and detected when the content is accessed or rendered; if the detected content matches a database or listing of previously played content for that user or premises, the trick mode functionality (e.g., FF or “skip”) is enabled, thereby allowing the user to bypass the content.

The present invention relates to a data processor and data processing method that facilitate properly processing a stream. An input stream is formed by a plurality of packets. Each of the packets of the input stream is distributed to one of a plurality of channels and null packets (NP) are distributed to the other channels. This divides the input stream into divided streams on a plurality of channels including the packets of the input stream at a predetermined density. The present invention can be used, for example, for a channel bonding (CB) technique in which an input stream is divided into a plurality of channels and transmitted.

Multi-link transportation of media, video and other data of the type having multiple layers, streams and/or encodings is contemplated. The multi-link transportation may be facilitated with a scheduler configured to schedule the various layers, streams, encodings, etc. for transportation over selectable communication links, such as based on reliability, capacity and/or other operating characteristics.

A method of processing a video fragment into two or more variants of the video fragment, each variant having a different watermark, the method comprising: fragmenting a video content into a sequence of fragments; watermarking a plurality of the fragments to create two or more variants of each of the plurality of fragments, wherein the two or more variants of one fragment are watermarked using different watermarks; adjusting the length of the two or more variants for at least one of the fragments to a same adjusted length, wherein the adjusted length is indicative of a temporal position of the two or more variants of the at least one of the fragments compared to variants of other fragments in the sequence of fragments.

Disclosed is a method for transmitting a broadcast signal. The method comprises formatting input streams with multiple data transmission channels, and the formatting step comprises adding a header indicating a format of a payload of the BBF.

A method for generating time marking for synchronous terrestrial broadcasting in at least one single-frequency zone of at least one audiovisual stream via at least one connection in which the at least one audiovisual stream is multiplexed with at least one other audiovisual stream broadcast via the at least one connection, the method including: inserting packets including at least one item of information representing a common reference clock, detecting at least one packet including information representing the number of days elapsed since a predetermined date, calculating the number of loopbacks of a counter during a given period, updating the counter at each packet of the audiovisual stream transmitted, inserting at least one packet including the value of the updated counter in the audiovisual stream in order to form a modified audiovisual stream and transmitting the modified audiovisual stream.

Managing Internet Protocol (IP) flows to produce multi-connection communication is contemplated, such as but not necessarily limited to managing a single IP flow simultaneously through disparate physical layers (PHYs). A unification sublayer may be configured as a logical interface between a network layer and a data link layer and/or the disparate PHYs to facilitating partitioning of IP packets included in the IP flow.

The present disclosure relates to a data transmission method and apparatus, and belongs to the field of Internet technology. The method includes: determining whether a to-be-sent video data packet exists each time a preset data sending cycle is reached; if the to-be-sent video data packet does not exist, selecting at least one video data packet, a number of times the at least one video data packet has been sent satisfying a preset sending-times condition and total data volume of the at least one video data packet satisfying a preset expected data-volume condition, from sent video data packets based on a number of times each of the sent video data packets has been sent, and determining a filling data packet according to selected video data packet; and sending the filling data packet to a receiving terminal.

Techniques for lossless transport stream compression from constant bitrate to variable bitrate to constant bitrate are described. An exemplary method includes generating elementary stream data from an encoder; receiving the generated elementary stream data in a packetizer; generating a transport stream output in the packetizer; and in a statmux, for consecutive NULL packets generated by the packetizer, counting a number of NULL packets between non-null packets and dropping those NULL packets, modifying a next packet to indicate the number of NULL packets dropped using a field in the next packet, and sending the next packet to a receiver.