Patent ID: 6598227
Filing Date: 2003-07-22
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
In a vehicle entertainment system having a plurality of seat controller cards (SCCs) executing programs downloaded from a system controller, a method of managing high speed download (HSDL) requests from the SCCs, said method comprising the steps of:receiving a HSDL request from a SCC for a requested program; processing the HSDL request; placing the HSDL request on a buffer manager input queue; extracting the HSDL request from the buffer manager input queue; checking to see if the requested program is stored in a download buffer; placing the HSDL request in the channel manager input queue if the requested program is stored in the download buffer; examining the download buffer to see if there is sufficient memory to load the requested program if the requested program is not in the download buffer; unloading a least requested program from the download buffer if memory space is not available; commanding the HSDL processor to load the requested program into the download buffer when sufficient memory is available; placing the download request into the channel manager input queue when the requested program is loaded into the download buffer; retrieving the download request from the channel manager input queue; determining if an earlier request involving the same buffer number has started to download; and downloading the requested program using at least one RF channel of a modulated RF signal that is distributed to the SCCs if the earlier request has not started to download.