Patent ID: 7756975

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for automatically discovering information about a domain of a computing device, the method comprising: receiving connection-characteristic information from at least one common-domain computing device located within the domain of the computing device; determining a master-client relationship between the computing device and the at least one common-domain computing device; identifying, based on the connection-characteristic information received from the at least one common-domain computing device, at least one characteristic of the domain of the computing device; transmitting domain-characteristic information to a source computing device, the domain-characteristic information comprising the at least one characteristic of the domain of the computing device; transmitting master-client relationship information to the source computing device, the master-client relationship information comprising the identity of the computing device designated as a master computing device and the identity of the at least one common-domain computing device designated as a client computing device during a multicast session; receiving domain-characteristic-dependent data from the source computing device.