摘要 |
A system and method are described for greatly increasing the number of services that can be encrypted with existing conditional access equipment (130). The method is most useful when many digitally compressed programs are encrypted at the same time. Only the most critical components of each compressed video, audio, or data stream are selected and then sequenced into a single stream (215). Additional formatting causes this sequence of segments from multiple sources to appear as a single continuous stream to the conditional access system (130). Once this sequenced into their respective programs. Messages such as the Entitlement Control Messages that are inserte d into the stream by the encryption system (120), are also adjusted and includ ed with each of the reconstructed programs. The technique not only allows encryption systems to be designed using less encryption hardware, but also simplifies the management of encryption sessions, particularly in on-demand programming applications. |