Posts Tagged: "US Patent No. 8265073"

Comcast to roll out XFinity Instant TV streaming service by fall 2017

One of the obstacles Comcast has to hurdle in order to attract these high-end buyers is the likelihood of a server malfunctioning and shutting down. This issue interrupts viewing and lessens the overall experience for the user. That is a problem addressed by the technology protected by U.S. Patent No. 8265073, which Comcast filed for in 2006 and was finally published in 2012. Titled Method and System which Enables Subscribers to Select Videos from Websites for On-demand Delivery to Subscriber Television via a Television Network, this patent describes a solution to the problem of provisioning servers being temporarily shut down, which can negatively impact video streams when such a server contains a critical network element. One existing method for streaming media is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), a method by which users can connect to digital networks. While changes and improvements have been made over the years, a problem still exists when network elements are unable to interact with the associated network. This patent protects a method in which an active-passive model is adopted where the primary server is mirrored with a backup provisioning server, thereby keeping the media running with only slight delays when one server crashes and the backup provisioning server is brought up online.