Patent ID: 8056105

Claim:
A method for supporting over-the-top video-on-demand services at a client, the method comprising: ingesting metadata for over-the-top content titles at a navigation server such that a client navigation operation of the titles of the over-the-top content depends only on the metadata ingest having been completed at the navigation server; providing a limited number of virtual content identifiers to the navigation server; in response to a user of the client selecting a title of over-the-top content, at the navigation server, mapping the selected title to an available one of the virtual content identifiers, wherein the mapping includes the virtual content identifier, an ingest location, and a time-to-live value that indicates how long the ingested content should remain on a video-on-demand server; passing the virtual content identifier to the client; passing the virtual content identifier and the ingest location to the video-on-demand server; receiving a request for the title from the client, the request identifying the title using the virtual content identifier; ingesting real content corresponding to the title of the over-the-top content at the video-on-demand server in response to the request from the set-to-box; and allowing the virtual content identifier to be reused to identify another title of the over-the-top content after the expiration of the time-to-live value.