Patent ID: 8040794

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a plurality of multicast streams of data into a first router; associating a separate source address with each of the received plurality of multicast streams; sourcing the plurality of multicast streams of data with the associated addresses to an associated recipient; determining whether each individual multicast stream belonging to the plurality of multicast streams of data is up or down; periodically sending, independent of the plurality of streams a packet comprising status information, the status information comprising a status value for each individual stream belonging to the plurality of streams of data to the recipient indicating whether each of the plurality of streams of data is up or down; continuously while receiving the plurality of multicast streams, detecting a loss or a recovery of a one of the plurality of multicast streams and, in accordance with a loss or recovery being detected, immediately sending a status packet to the associated recipient, the status packet including status change information indicating the detected loss or recovery of the one of the plurality of multicast streams of data and redirecting the one of the plurality of multicast streams data to a second router having at least one available stream in accordance with the status packet indicative of loss of the one of the plurality of multicast streams of data.