Inventors:
Carlton J. Sparrell - Marblehead MA, US
Alexander D. Vasilevsky - Westford MA, US
Chester Ruszczyk - Acton MA, US
Jinyou Zhang - Woburn MA, US
Assignee:
Ucentric Systems, Inc. - Maynard MA
International Classification:
H04L 12/64
Abstract:
A centralized interactive TV recording and reproduction system linking several “Quality of Service” (QoS) reproduction and control units (such as television and audio reproduction receivers), as well as high bandwidth non-QoS legacy devices such as PCs, via a Home Area Network (HAN) to a centralized media server, has novel traffic control to prevent non-QoS devices from establishing and maintaining high-bandwidth network connections during the real-time transmission of media (video and/or audio) information from the media server to the QoS devices. In the preferred embodiment, the media server also contains a gateway device for connecting the HAN to a Wide Area Network, Metropolitan Area Network, and/or the Internet, and the media server also receives video and audio signals from sources such as cable, satellite, terrestrial broadcast, etc. The media server also contains a network router. All traffic from non-QoS devices is routed through the media server, and the media server limits the delivery of packets sent from source non-QoS devices to destination non-QoS devices.