A method and test instrument for validating one or more out of band (OOB) channels in a CATV network, particularly one having a Remote PHY architecture. The method and test instrument may quickly and efficiently determine if an OOB channel is carrying valid data and is therefore “active.”

Systems and methods to support flexible scaling and dynamic resource allocation for virtualized cable data plane applications. The system includes a head end together with a node to provide data to customer devices. A container operating that includes a data plane application that provides packets of data for transmission to the node. The data plane application is instantiated with at least one of a virtual networking function and a computing resource function.

A cable distribution system includes a head end connected to a plurality of customer devices through a transmission network that provides data suitable for the plurality of customer devices. A traffic monitoring system receives from a customer support device a first data request for a parameter of one of the plurality of customer devices. The traffic monitoring system provides a second data request for the parameter of the one of said plurality of customer devices to a customer premise equipment management system in response to receiving the first data request. The traffic monitoring system receiving a first data response including the parameter from the customer premise equipment management system in response to providing the second data request to the customer premise equipment management system. The traffic monitoring system providing a second data response including the parameter from the traffic management system to the customer support device in response to receiving the first data response.

Disclosed is an in-building distributed repeater technique for distributing a wireless mobile communication signal into a building. Mobile communication signals of service carriers in communication between devices of an in-building distributed repeater system may be converted into intermediate frequency (IF) signals with adjacent frequency bands and may be transmitted or received as analog signals with compressed bandwidths through frequency division multiplexing. The service band gap spacing of Tx downstream analog IF signals transmitted by a headend unit to a remote service unit is wider than that of Rx downstream analog IF signals received from an active antenna unit.

A system includes an input and a plurality of outputs. The system also includes an in-home network adapter configured to connect to and be positioned between the input and the plurality of outputs. The system also includes a splitter configured to connect to and be positioned between the in-home network adapter and the plurality of outputs. The input is configured to receive signals in a cable television (CATV) bandwidth and signals in a multimedia over coax alliance (MoCA) bandwidth. The in-home network adapter is configured to allow the signals in the MoCA bandwidth to pass from the input to the plurality of outputs and from the plurality of outputs to the input. The in-home network adapter is configured to attenuate or prevent the signals in the CATV bandwidth from passing from the input to the plurality of outputs, from the plurality of outputs to the input, or both.

A cable television (CATV) entry adapter connects to a CATV network and serves as a hub in an In-Home Entertainment (IHE) network. IHE signals may be communicated between passive and active ports of an embodiment of the entry adapter through a pair of directional couplers which allow an IRE-enabled embedded multimedia terminal device (eMTA) at the passive port to communicate with multimedia devices of the IHE network connected to the active ports. An IHE frequency rejection filter is used in some embodiments to confine IHE signal to a single subscriber premise. In some embodiments a bidirectional IHE bandpass filter is used to enable IHE signals to pass between the passive and active ports of the CATV entry adapter.

Disclosed herein are methods and systems to help disambiguate channel identification in a scenario where fingerprint data of media content matches multiple reference fingerprints corresponding respectively with multiple different channels. Upon detecting such a multi-match, a server or other entity will perform disambiguation based on a determination that a segment of the fingerprint data matches a reference fingerprint corresponding with just a single channel, such as a reference fingerprint representing commercial or news programming content specific to just the single channel. The server or other entity will thereby determine the channel on which the media content being rendered by the media presentation device is arriving, so as to facilitate taking channel-specific action.

The example system and method enable a user to post comments to appear as textual content in a streaming graphical content presentation. The textual content and the graphical content may be provided to the user's set top box for presentation on an associated display device and may be provided to another user's set top box for presentation on the other user's display device. Each of the users utilize a wireless remote control enabled to accept text and/or voice inputs of a comment for inclusion in the streaming graphical content. The set top box generates a comment based on the inputted text and/or voice received from the remote control. The set top box provides the generated comment to a media server which distributes textual content based on the generated comment to other set top boxes for presentation with the streaming graphical content.

An integrated network receiver includes a first universal resource identifier for a first channel and an input suitable for receiving a first input video content from the Internet based upon the first universal resource identifier. The integrated network receiver provides the first input video content for the first channel to a head end connected to a plurality of customer devices through a transmission network. The integrated network receiver updating the first universal resource identifier based upon data obtained from a video address server.

An example method includes detecting over a particular time-period and at a periodic interval, match data indicating whether reference fingerprints representing content transmitted by a non-local content-distribution system on a particular channel matches query fingerprints representing content received by a content-presentation device on the particular channel. The method also includes based on the match data, identifying three time-periods within the particular time-period, the middle of which being a time-period (i) in which there is a threshold consistent lack of matching for a threshold duration and (ii) that corresponds to a detected portion of the received content that serves as a placeholder for local content to be inserted by a local content-distribution system. The method also includes based on the three identified time-periods, detecting, that the local content-distribution system inserted local content into the content received on the particular channel in connection with the detected portion, and responsively performing an action.