Patent ID: 7760740

Claim:
A method of delivering a television program from a single media source to first and second settop boxes (STBs), the first and second STBs requiring the television program to be formatted respectively according to first and second codecs, the method comprising: the media source identifying the first and second codecs operating on the first and second STBs based on information collected from management information bases (MIBs) of the first and second STBs; from a beginning of the television program, the media source formatting the television program according to the first codec to support unicast delivery to the first STB, the unicast delivery characterized as being accessible solely to the first STB; and after the beginning of the television program, the media source formatting the television program according to the second codec to support multicast delivery to the second STB, the remainder of the television program being less than the entire length of the television program and the multicast delivery characterized as being accessible to at least both of the first and second STBs.