Patent ID: 7003794

Claim:
A multicasting system for reception of multimedia information, said system comprising: a content switch coupled to a multimedia content source; said multimedia content source including a plurality N of multimedia contents, each said multimedia content being supported by a primary primary bit rate multimedia stream transmitted over a primary dedicated channel having a primary bandwidth; N being an integer; said content switch further including: a bandwidth scaler configured to scale each said primary primary bit rate multimedia stream transmitted at a primary high bit rate over one said primary dedicated channel having one said primary bandwidth to a plurality K of secondary bit rate secondary multimedia sub-streams, K being an integer, wherein a first secondary bit rate secondary multimedia sub-stream has a first low bit rate, wherein a second secondary bit rate secondary multimedia sub-stream has a second low bit rate, and wherein a K-th secondary bit rate secondary multimedia sub-stream has a K-th low bit rate, and at least one multimedia smart terminal, each said multimedia smart terminal configured to receive from said content switch over a network each said multimedia content as a secondary multimedia stream transmitted over a secondary channel having a secondary bandwidth; wherein at least one said multimedia smart terminal further includes: a smart terminal sub-stream switch configured to switch between said plurality K of secondary_bit_rate secondary multimedia sub-streams in order to select a substantially optimum secondary_bit_rate secondary multimedia sub-stream having a substantially optimum low bit rate; wherein said substantially optimum secondary_bit_rate secondary multimedia sub-stream includes a substantially optimum relationship between an error rate level determined at the time of reception of said substantially optimum secondary_bit_rate secondary multimedia sub-stream and the quality of reception of a multimedia content supported by said substantially optimum secondary_bit_rate secondary multimedia sub-stream.