Patent ID: 8146129

Claim:
A method of providing video content and supplemental information to a client over a switched digital video content-based network, said method comprising the steps of: transmitting said video content from a head end, over said switched digital video content-based network, to said client, wherein said head end obtains a first group of program streams and sends to said client only a subset of said program streams selected by subscribers in a neighborhood of said client, said video content being contained in a given one of said subset of said program streams, said client being tuned to a channel corresponding to said given one of said subset of said streams; and transmitting said supplemental information from said head end, over said switched digital video content-based network, to said client, based at least in part upon said channel to which said client is tuned; wherein: said video content and said supplemental information are both sent on an identical carrier frequency corresponding to said channel; and said video content and said supplemental information employ a substantially identical quadrature amplitude modulation scheme, said video content is broken into packets identified via a first packet identifier, and said supplemental information is broken into packets identified via a second packet identifier.