Patent ID: 7961665

Claim:
A terminal-aware communications network configured to use adaptive coding and modulation (“ACM”) to communicate with a plurality of data terminals, each of the data terminals having a different capability, the network comprising: a designated data terminal, being one of the plurality of data terminals, configured to receive a transmission over a communication link, and having a capability metric defining at least one of a data receiving capability of the designated data terminal, a data playback capability of the designated data terminal, or a data communication capability of the communication link; and a gateway, in communication with the plurality of data terminals and comprising: a source data receiver module configured to receive source data; a terminal awareness module, configured to determine the capability metric of the designated data terminal; a pre-coder module configured to pre-code the source data using a first pre-coding scheme to generate a first set of representation data decodable independently to provide a set of first-level playback data representing the set of source data, and using a second pre-coding scheme to generate a second set of representation data decodable in combination with the first set of representation data to provide a set of second-level playback data representing the source data; an ACM module configured to associate the first set of representation data with a first coding and modulation scheme and associate the second set of representation data with a second coding and modulation scheme, wherein the second coding and modulation scheme is of a higher order than the first coding and modulation scheme and is determined as a function of the capability metric of the designated data terminal; and a transceiver module, configured to generate a transmission by applying the first coding and modulation scheme to the first set of representation data and applying the second coding and modulation scheme to the second set of representation data, and communicate the transmission to the designated data terminal over the communication link.