Patent ID: 8776153

Claim:
A method of downloading video content representing a subscriber program to a subscriber terminal over an asymmetric digital subscriber line, comprising: Decomposing, at a server, using a pyramid compression technique, a video content into a plurality of video quality portions during compression of the video content, wherein the compression of the video content uses one of a sub-band technique and a vector quantization technique, wherein the decomposing produces a low-quality video portion and a plurality of incrementally higher quality video portions of the video content, such that each combination of said low-quality video portion and a combination of one or more of said plurality of incrementally higher quality video portions provides a different bit rate of the video content corresponding to a different video quality level of the video content having a higher video quality than said low-quality video portion, wherein said low-quality video portion comprises a complete copy of the video content; Downloading from the server, prior to receiving a request for the video content from the subscriber terminal, said low-quality video portion comprising said complete copy of the video content, to the subscriber terminal via the asymmetrical digital subscriber line during off-peak hours for storage locally at the subscriber terminal; receiving from a user at the subscriber terminal, a selection request for the video content made subsequent to downloading and storing of said low-quality video portion comprising said complete copy at the subscriber terminal; determining, by the server, in response to receiving the selection request for the video content from the subscriber terminal, a bandwidth of the asymmetrical digital subscriber line assigned to the subscriber terminal; determining, by the server, an optimized combination of one or more of said plurality of incrementally higher video quality portions for the determined bandwidth of the asymmetrical digital subscriber line to the subscriber terminal; retrieving, by the server, said optimized combination of one or more of said plurality of incrementally higher quality video portions; downloading from the server, said optimized combination of one or more of said plurality of incrementally higher quality video portions retrieved by the server, to the subscriber terminal via the asymmetrical digital subscriber line in real time; and recombining at the subscriber terminal, said locally stored low-quality video portion comprising said complete copy of the video content with said optimized combination of one or more of said plurality of incrementally higher video quality portions downloading from the server in real time, for presentation of the video content, wherein the recombining step provides a higher video quality of the video content at a bit rate exceeding the assigned bandwidth of the asymmetrical digital subscriber line to the subscriber terminal.