Patent ID: 8312488

Claim:
A method for selecting from among a plurality of program streams delivered from a CMTS, comprising: locking the broadband device to a first downstream channel in a first MAC domain; receiving program stream information for each of the plurality of multicast program streams available at a broadband device, the multicast program streams being available on one or more channels received by the broadband device, the program stream information comprising information about which of a plurality of downstream channels includes a particular multicast program stream; storing the program stream information in a memory at the broadband device; displaying program information associated with available multicast programs; selecting a desired multicast program from the displayed program information; comparing the received program stream information with details of the selected multicast program; if it is determined that the received program stream information includes information associated with the selected multicast program, generating a local stream request to a broadband device that includes program information corresponding to the desired multicast program, and locking the broadband device to a new downstream channel associated with the desired multicast program stream corresponding to the local stream request without issuing a channel change request to a headend device; and if it is determined that the program stream information does not include information associated with the selected multicast program, requesting from the head end the selected multicast program, informing the CMTS of the new downstream channel to which the broadband device is currently tuned, and informing the CMTS of the current multicast program stream to which the broadband device is locked.