Patent ID: 8654768

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an upstream communication interface configured to receive from an associated source a multicast stream; a downstream communication interface; and, routing and transcoding logic operatively coupled with the upstream communication interface and operatively coupled with the downstream communication interface; the routing and transcoding logic receives a request for the multicast stream from a first subscriber requesting the stream encoded by a first encoder; the routing and transcoding logic receives a request for the multicast stream from a second subscriber requesting the stream encoded by a second encoder; the routing and transcoding logic selects the first codec for receiving the stream from the associated source responsive to determining the first codec is a preferred codec; the routing and transcoding logic requests the multicast stream from the associated source encoded by the first codec responsive to selecting the first codec for receiving the stream from the associated source; wherein the routing and transcoding logic is configured to forward unchanged the multicast stream encoded by the first codec to the first downstream subscriber of the multicast stream encoded by the first codec; wherein the routing and transcoding logic is configured to replicate the multicast stream encoded by the first codec and transcode the multicast stream encoded by the first codec to a multicast stream encoded by a second codec; and wherein the routing and transcoding logic is configured to forward the multicast stream encoded by the second codec to the second downstream subscriber of the multicast stream encoded by the second codec.