Patent ID: 7540012
Filing Date: 2009-05-26
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A method for representing interconnections of a plurality of elements of a video-on-demand services system, said system including a multitude of servers for storing video data, a multitude of customers for receiving said video data and viewing said video data on customer video monitors, and a system administrator for configuring and monitoring connections between said servers and said customers, and wherein said video-on-demand services are provided by a service provider to the multitude of customers and enable said customers to choose interactively various programs stored in a video source and to view a selected program at any time on the customer video monitors, the method comprising: providing a first catalog for a first subset of said elements, and providing a second catalog for a second subset of said elements; creating a matrix of connection cells representing services provided by said service provider to said multitude of customers, each cell formed by an intersection of a pair of elements, wherein a first element of each pair is taken from the first catalog and a second element of each pair is taken from the second catalog, including the step of said system administrator interacting with said cells to configure and to monitor the connections between said servers and said customer video monitors; and forming a connection representation for at least a subset of the pairs, the connection representation for each cell represents a service provided by said service provider to a respective one of said multitude of customers; and wherein, when one of the customers requests a video program, the system administrator interacts with the cells of the matrix (i) to select one of the servers to provide the requested video program to said one of the customers and (ii) to assign to said one of the customers one or more of a multitude of video data channels to configure a video data path between the selected one of the servers and the video monitor of said one of the customers for transmitting the requested video program from said selected one of the servers to the video monitor of said one of the customers for viewing by said one of the customers, and wherein commercials are provided with the video program, and the commercials are selected based on displayed video usage patterns of the customers; and wherein: each element of the first catalog corresponds to a primary server; each element of the second catalog corresponds to a secondary server; each of the intersections of the matrix represents a logical connection of a presentation flowing from one primary server to one secondary server; and multiple presentations are flowing between the one primary server and the one secondary server, and said multiple presentations are represented by a stack of blocks shown on said each of the intersections, each of said blocks representing a different one of said multiple presentations.