ADVANCE DECRYPTION KEY ACQUISITION FOR STREAMING MEDIA CONTENT

摘要

Various arrangements are presented for reducing channel change times. A first tuner of a television receiver may tune to a decryption key transponder stream. The decryption key transponder stream may include a plurality of decryption keys for a plurality of television channels that are transmitted to the television receiver via a plurality of transponder streams. Such keys may be buffered. A second tuner of the television receiver may be tuned to a media transponder stream to receive a television channel. A buffered decryption key may be used in decoding the television channel.

主权项

1. A method for channel tuning with a satellite-based content distribution system, the method comprising:
tuning, by a television receiver, a first tuner of the television receiver to a plurality of different media transponder streams in accordance with a predefined pattern of hopping between the different media transponder streams at different time intervals, wherein each of the plurality of media transponder streams comprises:
a stream of video packets and audio packets for a plurality of television channels associated with the media transponder stream; anda plurality of decryption keys corresponding to only the plurality of television channels that are associated with the media transponder stream; buffering, by the television receiver, the plurality of decryption keys received by the first tuner from each of the plurality of media transponder streams during the predefined pattern of hopping between the different media transponder streams; tuning, by the television receiver, a second tuner of the television receiver to a particular media transponder stream of the plurality of media transponder streams to receive a particular television channel of the plurality of television channels associated with the particular media transponder stream; decrypting, by the television receiver, a decryption key from the plurality of buffered decryption keys received by the first tuner, the decryption key corresponding to the television channel; and decoding, by the television receiver, the particular television channel tuned to by the second tuner, using the decryption key.