A system and a method use an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network. The application may use an HTML rendering engine to display a web page to a user of the mobile device, and the web page may have controls for accessing the internet media content. The application may receive a user interaction signal which may indicate that a user invoked one of the controls for accessing the internet media content. In response, the application may initiate transfer of the internet media content to the rendering device in the home network and/or may queue the internet media content for later playback using the rendering device.

Various arrangements of a local cloud system for providing television services are presented. A facility cloud host system may have a content service provider interface that is used to receive live television channel streams from a television content service provider. The local cloud system may have a transcoder that transcodes the live television channels into a format to be transmitted locally to client devices. The local cloud system may provide access to recorded content from a remote master cloud host.

The present disclosure provides an internet interface circuit, which includes an ethernet interface, a first isolating transformer, a second isolating transformer, a network signal processing chip and a first interference defending circuit; the ethernet interface is used for receiving and sending a network signal; the first isolating transformer is used for separating a receiving data end of the ethernet interface from the network signal receiving chip; the second isolating transformer is used for separating a sending data end of the ethernet interface from the network signal receiving chip; the first interference defending circuit is used for defending common-mode interference and differential-mode interference of the receiving data end of the ethernet interface; the network signal processing chip is used for processing the network signal. The present disclosure also provides a television. The internet interface protecting circuit of the present disclosure can defend the common-mode interference and differential-mode interference.

Systems and methods for synchronizing the playback of network media across multiple content playback devices, termed herein as “playback devices”, “clients”, or “client devices”. In one implementation, client devices are controlled to parse and buffer media content separately. Once all clients are ready, a controller may cause the client devices to start in a synchronized fashion based on signals sent by the controller. The controller adjusts the timing of the signal so that the outputs are displayed in synchronization on each client device. In other implementations, device lag times may be measured. In still other implementations, a master device may synchronize playback of media content on slave devices. In yet other implementations, devices may buffer and join playback of media content occurring on other devices. In further implementations, the systems and methods may be expanded to include steps of processing authentication for service providers prior to arranging synchronized playback.

A content delivery network (CDN) includes: at least one CDN origin node; and multiple CDN cache nodes connected to the at least one CDN origin node via an optical transport network (OTN). Deliveries and/or routing from the multiple CDN cache nodes to the at least one CDN origin node and/or vice versa is performed below layer 3 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.

Traditional streaming sequentially downloads content fragments one by one from one CDN. The disclosed streaming method concurrently downloads content fragments from multiple CDNs. It first creates a sequence of bundles of fragments, and then downloads a subsequent bundle by spreading requests to download the fragments within the bundle to multiple CDNs simultaneously with each CDN acting as a channel to download a different fragment. Depending on business needs, various request dispatching strategies can be deployed. When there is a volume based pricing contract with a CDN, a dispatch strategy is to send more requests to the CDN in order to reach contract volume therefore reduce unit cost. Another strategy is to send the request for the earliest fragment to the fastest CDN in order to reduce latency and possibility of buffer underrun. Fault tolerance can be provided by re-routing a request failed at a CDN to another CDN.

A master node in a multimedia content network includes a processor, a content interface coupled to the processor and configured to receive, from a media source, a multimedia stream including a multimedia program, a network interface coupled to the processor and configured to provide an interface to a broadband network, processor executable instructions for performing operations including: identifying a group of subordinate nodes available to analyze a multimedia program, assigning different analysis tasks for the multimedia program to the available subordinate nodes, receiving analysis results from the subordinate nodes; and modifying electronic programming guide information for the multimedia program based on the analysis results.

Video content is uploaded via the Internet to a video-on-demand (VOD) server identified by a title and a hierarchical address of categories and subcategories for categorizing the title. The VOD server converts and stores the video content at a storage address in a video content database linked to the title. The title is listed in a location of an electronic program guide (EPG) using the same categories and subcategories as in its hierarchical address. Any TV subscriber can access the EPG and navigate through its categories and subcategories to find a title for viewing on the TV. This can enable many new blogging or podcasting-like programs by popular “Hosts” to be self-published on the Internet and readily navigated for display on TV. The EPG can also store TV program addresses as bookmarks and allow them to be shared with other subscribers or with friends and contacts online by sending to their email addresses.

Systems and methods for virtual interactions are described. One or more users can view or listen to media, react to the media and share such media experience virtually with others. The media experience can take place synchronously, asynchronously or both.

A method of acquiring and accumulating data from a server via a network is provided. A request is transmitted for a plurality of items of data and includes at least one ingestion marker associated with the data. The at least one ingestion marker represents a last occurrence of when a change was made to the data. Data is received with a transfer protocol in response to the request. The data has at least one associated ingestion marker different than the at least one associated ingestion marker transmitted with the request. The received data and the at least one associated ingestion marker is stored in memory. The request is transmitted and the data is received and stored electronically by an electronic client device communicating with the server over the network. A system of acquiring and accumulating Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data from a web-server over a network is also disclosed.