Patent ID: 8332884

Claim:
Apparatus for providing encoded content data, the apparatus comprising: a content data receiver adapted to receive content data comprising a first sequence of frames defining a group of pictures and having a first content data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further content data frames encoded with reference to the first content data frame; an advertising data receiver adapted to receive advertising data comprising a second sequence of advertising data frames having a first advertising data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further advertising data frames encoded with reference to the first advertising data frame; a decoder to decode the series of further content data frames to provide a series of decoded further content data frames; and an encoder coupled to the data receiver and adapted to encode the series of decoded further content data frames with reference to at least one of the advertising data frames, wherein the independently encoded first advertising data frame immediately follows the independently encoded first content data frame, and wherein all differentially or predictively encoded frames, but no independently encoded frames, of the content data group of pictures following a predictively encoded frame of the second sequence are re-encoded with reference to the predictively encoded frame of the second sequence, and wherein a player of the encoded data frames cannot decode the first sequence of frames without decoding at least one frame of the advertising data.