Patent ID: 8370888

Claim:
A data stream recorder system for real-time multi-stream recording, retrieval and control of multimedia content via a packet data network, the recorder system comprising: a plurality of gateways, each for sending and receiving packets containing streaming multimedia content data at real-time rates via the packet data network; a session manager for communicating via the network with source client devices and receiver client devices to establish and control sessions through the packet data network, to assign sessions to the gateways for the sending and receiving of the packets to and from the client devices, the session manager being configured to: monitor the available bandwidth of each of the gateways to receive packets containing streaming multimedia content; receive a request from each of the source client devices for a gateway that can receive packets containing steaming multimedia content at a needed bandwidth specified in the request; for each received request: determine which of the gateways has an available bandwidth that is sufficient to receive the packets containing the streaming multimedia content from the source client device that sent the request based on the monitored available bandwidths of the gateways and the needed bandwidth specified in the request; inform the source client device making the request of the identity of the determined gateway to which the streaming packets should be sent; and inform the determined gateway of the needed bandwidth specified in the request; and a plurality of storage nodes for storing multimedia content data from packets received via sessions through the gateways and for providing stored multimedia content data to the gateways for communication via sessions through the gateways, each respective storage node comprising: (a) a plurality of digital storage devices, for storage and retrieval of distributed portions of multimedia content data for a plurality of sessions; and (b) a scheduler for controlling distribution of content data from packets received at the respective node for storage across the digital storage devices of the respective storage node, wherein: each of the gateways receiving packets containing content data at real time rates during a recording session distributes the received packets across all of the storage nodes, each scheduler of a respective storage node distributes content data from packets distributed to the respective storage node across all of the digital storage devices of the respective storage node, and each of the gateways, sending packets containing content data at real time rates during a retrieval session, obtains stored content retrieved from storage devices of storage nodes and transmits packets containing the retrieved content as a real-time outgoing stream through the packet data network to at least one of the receiver client devices, whereby the session manager is bypassed during the delivery of the streaming packets from the source client devices to the gateways.