METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REDUCING CHANNEL CHANGE RESPONSE TIMES FOR INTERNET PROTOCOL TELEVISION

摘要

The invention includes a method and apparatus for improving a channel change response time. A method includes propagating a plurality of media streams toward at least one user terminal using a respective plurality of multicast groups and propagating a meta channel toward the at least one user terminal for conveying information adapted for use in selecting one of the media streams in a manner tending to improve the channel change response time. The media streams include an original media stream conveying media content and at least one auxiliary media stream, generated from the original media stream, where each of the at least one auxiliary media stream conveys the media content of the original media stream, where each of the at least one auxiliary media stream is offset in time with respect to the original media stream. The information conveyed by the meta channel is associated with the media streams. A user device may receive the meta channel information and select one of the media streams using the meta channel information in response to a channel change request from the user terminal, or a network device may select one of the media streams for a user terminal in response to a channel change request from the user terminal.