Patent ID: 8107403

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving multicast packets communicating a plurality of individual media streams from a plurality of communication endpoints including multicast communication endpoints and unicast communication endpoints, each communication endpoint having an associated individual media stream; inspecting the multicast packets to identify each individual media stream with which each packet is associated by de-multiplexing a multiplexed media stream that is included in the multicast packets; using identifiers in the multicast packets to identify the individual media streams, the identifiers identifying the multicast communication endpoints and the unicast communication endpoints associated with the individual media streams; individually processing each individual media stream by buffering each individual media stream in an associated buffer; selecting at least one individual media stream from buffers that are associated with the multicast communication endpoints; receiving unicast packets corresponding to unicast media streams from a plurality of unicast communication endpoints; selecting at least one unicast media stream to send to a first unicast communication endpoint; generating a first combined media stream by combining the at least one selected individual media stream and the at least one selected unicast media stream; and unicasting the first combined media stream to the first unicast communication endpoint.