Patent ID: 8739231

Claim:
A system for providing video-on-demand services, the system comprising: a plurality of devices, coupled to a network, each of the plurality of devices including a storage element for storing data segments corresponding to a plurality of media content, and wherein each of the plurality of devices is configurable to generate a request for playback of a selected one of the plurality of media content; and a server coupled to the network and configured to: classify the plurality of media content into at least a first group and a second group, the first group corresponding to a plurality of media content that is selected as being more popular than a plurality of media content in the second group; generate data segments each including a plurality of non-consecutive data blocks selected by decimated sampling of the plurality of media content; wherein the data segments have a number equal to the smallest integer that is larger than a ratio of a download rate of the plurality devices divided by an upload rate of the plurality of devices; distribute the data segments corresponding to the plurality of media content to the plurality of devices by distributing more data segments of the plurality of media content in the first group than data segments of the plurality of media content in the second group to the plurality of devices so that at least one data segment of each media content in the first group is stored in the storage element of each of the plurality of devices; provide a response to a request for playback of a selected media content from a first devices of the plurality of devices, the response including source information identifying a set of devices from the plurality of devices designated to provide a plurality of distributed data segments corresponding to the selected media content to the first device.