| 摘要 |
A method and apparatus for providing:a) multimedia services to a local area network includes processing that begins by receiving a plurality of channels from at least one multimedia source. The processing continues by receiving selection requests from at least one client module via a communication path. The processing continues by generating a set of channel select commands from the select request. The processing continues by selecting a set of channels from the plurality of channels based on the set of channel select commands. The processing continues by mixing the set of channels into a stream of channel data. The processing then continues by transmitting the stream of channel data via the communication path to the at least one client module such that each client associated with a client module receives the channel data for the respective channels that they had selected. b) multiplexing a plurality of channels within a multimedia system includes processing that begins by receiving a plurality of channels from a multimedia source. The processing then continues by receiving a plurality of channel selection commands from client modules. The processing continues by selecting a channel of the plurality of channels for each of the channel selection commands to produce selected channels. As such, for each channel selection command, a corresponding channel is selected from the plurality of channels. The processing continues by encoding the selected channels based on a data conveyance protocol (e.g., encoding scheme and/or modulation scheme). The encoded channel data is then conveyed to a plurality of clients. c) managing resources within a multimedia system includes processing that begins by receiving a client request for a multimedia system service from one of a plurality of clients. The processing continues by determining whether the client's request is valid for this particular client. The processing continues when the request is valid by determining whether the multimedia system has sufficient resources to fulfill the client request. The processing continues when the multimedia system has sufficient resources to fulfill the client request by allocating at least some of the sufficient resources to fulfill the client request based on a multimedia system resource allocation procedure, which insures that the resources of the system are allocated in an efficient manner. |
