Patent ID: 7817535

Claim:
A method for detecting a multicast stream fault in a digital broadcast video distribution system, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of video transport stream (TS) packets, at least two of the received TS packets having set program clock reference (PCR) flags; determining an average time interval between occurrences of the received video TS packets having set PCR flags; receiving a plurality of subsequent video TS packets, at least two of the received subsequent video TS packets having set PCR flags; determining a set of time intervals between successive occurrences of the subsequent video TS packets having set PCR flags; and declaring a multicast stream fault when a predetermined number of the set of determined time intervals differs from the average time interval by more than a predetermined difference, wherein the digital broadcast video distribution system comprises a packet network and an edge device, wherein the edge device is configured to: detect the multicast stream fault; upon detecting the multicast stream fault, broadcast an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) join request that propagates through the packet network; and select a multiplexed multicast stream responsive to broadcasting the IGMP join request.