Patent ID: 8711854

Claim:
A method, comprising: monitoring, by a repair point, a primary multicast group comprising multiple receivers for receiving a native media stream, wherein the multiple receivers are connected to a media source through a plurality of network nodes; detecting, at the repair point, packet losses in the native media stream prior to the loss being detected by the multiple receivers, wherein detecting, at the repair point, packet losses in the native media stream comprises detecting at the repair point the packet losses wherein the repair point is configured to receive the native media stream prior to the multiple receivers; identifying, by the repair point, a group of receivers which were configured to receive the lost packets; creating, by the repair point, a second multicast group comprising the identified group of receivers which were configured to receive the lost packets; joining by the repair point, the second multicast group; sending, by the repair point, out suppression notices in the second multicast group for the identified lost packets that keep the receivers from sending back lost packet notices; dynamically selecting, by the repair point, different types of correction or retransmission schemes for correcting or replacing the lost packets based on a number lost packet notices that would have normally been received from the receivers if the suppression notices were not sent; identifying, by the repair point, backup data associated with the identified lost packets; and multicasting, by the repair point, the identified backup data to the receivers in the second multicast group for repairing the lost packets, based on the selected type of scheme, wherein the identified backup data is sent to the at least one repair point through a repair channel which is separate from a native media channel.