Patent ID: 8031701
Filing Date: 2011-10-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus comprising: a media retransmission device configured to cache portions of an Internet Protocol (IP) transmitted media stream and share an IP address with one or more other media retransmission devices, wherein the shared IP address is for addressing retransmission requests sent from one or more multicast media stream receivers, wherein the shared IP address is further for directing retransmission requests to be distributed back to the media retransmission device according to IP network topology relationships between the media retransmission device and a subset of media stream receivers; wherein the media retransmission device is configured to re-originate the IP transmitted media stream by mimicking a Real-Time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) translator; and wherein the retransmission requests are RTCP Negative Acknowledgement (NACK) packets that include the shared IP address as a destination address and lost packet information, wherein the NACK packets dynamically instantiate a unicast RTP repair session from a retransmission system to a requesting receiver.