Patent ID: 7039938

Claim:
A video on demand (VOD) method, comprising: storing multiple selective encrypted VOD content on a VOD server; wherein the multiple selective encrypted VOD content comprises a single instance of digital data representing a VOD program in which selected portions of the digital data representing the VOD program are duplicated to produce first and second duplicate copies of the selected portions of the digital data, and wherein the first duplicate copy of the selected portions of the digital data are encrypted under a first Conditional Access (CA) encryption system and the second duplicate copy of the selected portions of the digital data are encrypted under a second CA encryption system, and wherein portions of the digital data representing the VOD program which are unselected remain unencrypted, so that decryption of either one of the first and second duplicate copies of the digital data and combining the decrypted copy of the selected portions of the digital data representing the VOD program with the unselected portions of the digital data representing the VOD program recreates the single instance of digital data representing the VOD program; receiving an order for the VOD content specifying delivery to a target decoder; determining what CA encryption system is associated with target decoder of the order; stripping all encrypted segments from the multiple selectively encrypted content that are not associated with the CA encryption system associated with the target decoder of the order to produce single selectively encrypted VOD content, wherein single selectively encrypted VOD content comprises digital data representing the VOD program in which only a single one of the first and second CA encrypted duplicate data remains for the encrypted selected portions; and sending the single selectively encrypted VOD content to the target decoder.