Patent ID: 8296812

Claim:
A system for streaming a movie on demand over a network comprising: a server configured to: (i) encode a plurality of portions of the movie to a plurality of encoded portions so that each encoded portion has a plurality of sections, (ii) generate a plurality of segments, each segment comprising a section of some of the plurality of encoded portions, and (iii) distribute the plurality of segments to some of a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of portions corresponds to a time slice of the movie, and wherein the number of the plurality of portions of the time slice is approximately equal to a ratio of a predetermined download bandwidth to a predetermined upload bandwidth; an apparatus comprising: a network interface coupled to the network; a control system coupled to the network interface and configured to: (i) initiate a request for the movie, and (ii) communicate with one or more nodes of the plurality of nodes to receive a subset of the plurality of segments; and a decoder coupled to the network interface and configured to decode a subset of the plurality of sections so that less than all of the plurality of sections are used to play back the portions of the movie; wherein the apparatus enables (i) the movie to be played back in its entirety, and (ii) each portion of the movie to be played back in its entirety, without using all of the plurality of sections of that portion; and a presentation device coupled to the apparatus, the presentation device being configured to display the plurality of portions of the movie for play back; wherein the server is further configured to, in response to the request for the movie, identify the one or more nodes of the plurality of nodes that store the subset of the plurality of sections in order to enable the control system of the apparatus to receive the subset of the plurality of segments from the one or more nodes.