Patent ID: 8259814

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a single video stream at a communications system, wherein the video stream includes plural processed representations of a video signal, wherein each of the plural processed representations of the video signal (PPROTVS) includes a respective sequence of processed latticed pictures, wherein each processed latticed picture of each of the PPROTVS represents a corresponding respective picture of the video signal, wherein each respective picture of the video signal is represented by at most one processed latticed picture in each of the PPROTVS, wherein plural consecutive non-overlapping segments of one of the PPROTVS are received in a single video stream, each separated by one or more consecutive, non-overlapping segments of the other PPROTVS received in the single video stream, wherein each of all of the plural segments representing the same segment of pictures of the video signal is received in successive non-overlapping segment-distribution intervals (SDIs), wherein all successive non-overlapping segments in each of the successive SDIs represent a different segment of pictures of the video signal, wherein a first complete set of representations of a first segment of the video signal is received over a number of successive SDIs equal to number of representations in the first complete set, and wherein the aggregate number of pixels in the decompressed version of all pictures that correspond to the same picture of the video signal in the first complete set equals the number of pixels of the corresponding picture of the video signal, wherein responsive to receiving a first segment of the plural successive SDIs, wherein the oldest segment corresponds to processed latticed pictures having the earliest picture output span: decompressing the processed latticed pictures of the first segment; forming pictures by de-latticing the decompressed pictures of the first segment; and providing the de-latticed pictures of the first segment for display at a partial picture resolution of the corresponding pictures of the video signal, the partial resolution corresponding to a picture resolution of lip, where p equals the number of PPROTVS; wherein responsive to receiving a second segment of the first complete set, wherein a first segment of a previous SDI has been previously buffered and the second segment is the oldest segment of one of the plural successive SDIs, wherein the oldest corresponds to processed latticed pictures having the earliest picture output span: decompressing the processed latticed pictures of the second segment and the first segment; de-latticing the decompressed pictures of the first and second segments; and providing the de-latticed pictures of the first and second segments for display at a partial picture resolution of the corresponding pictures of the video signal, the partial picture resolution corresponding to a picture resolution of 2/p, where p equals the number of PPROTVS; and outputting the plural segments in decompressed format in output picture order.