Patent ID: 8307049

Claim:
In a network device, a method for obtaining media description information of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services that is used to create a media session that uses multiple media delivery channels for delivering multiple media streams of media content and one or more media control channels for controlling playback operations for consuming the media content, the method comprising: receiving, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) request for obtaining media description information of a plurality of different media channels corresponding to a plurality of media delivery streams for a single media content, wherein the SIP request is sent by a User Equipment (UE) through a core IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and carries a content identifier; sending, a SIP response that carries the media description information corresponding to the content identifier to the UE through the core IMS, wherein the media description information includes one or more attributes to describe the relation between one or more media control channels and the plurality of media delivery channels corresponding to the plurality of media delivery streams; and wherein the media description information indicates a control state of each of the plurality of media streams, and wherein the control state is one of synchronous control, separate control, or a hybrid of synchronous control and separate control for the plurality of media streams.