Methods and apparatus for supporting content distribution

1. A content distribution system, comprising:

a content server used to stream content to customer premise equipment of a customer;

a plurality of regional content servers, at least some of said regional content servers including long term and short term content stores;

a multi-region content server, coupled to said regional content servers, the multi-region content server including a data base including more content titles than individual ones of said regional content servers; and

a content distribution control apparatus configured to control distribution of content in response to a request, from said customer, for content that is not available at said content server used to stream content, said content distribution control apparatus being configured to: determine content servers which can supply the requested content and generate estimates, for alternative content servers which can supply the requested content, of the amount of time required to deliver the requested content to the content server used to stream content to the customer premise equipment of the customer, select a content server in said system to be used as the source of the requested content based on the cost of delivering content from the selected content server to said content server used to stream content to the customer premise equipment of the customer, and implement a preference for lower cost links which can be used to deliver content to said content server used to stream content to the customer premise equipment of the customer even when it results in a longer delivery delay than if a content source corresponding to more costly links was selected.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein said system includes more regional content servers than multi-region content servers, said servers being arranged in a hierarchical arrangement;

wherein said content server used to stream content to customer premise equipment of a customer is one of a regional content server and a local content server; and

wherein said customer premise equipment is a set top box.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein said multi-region content server is a national content server which includes at least three time the data storage capacity of the individual regional content servers and which stores at least three time the number of titles stored on any one of said plurality of regional content servers.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the majority of the video titles stored in the regional servers coupled to the multi-region content server are also stored in said multi-region content server.

5. The system of claim 4 ,

wherein at least some of said regional content servers include:

i) long term video content storage for storing frequently ordered video content; and

ii) short term storage for storing content supplied by said multi-region content server to said regional content server in response to a request from a user for content not stored on said regional content server at the time of the user request.

6. The system of claim 2 , wherein said content distribution control apparatus includes:

a web server module for receiving content requests from users via the Internet.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein said content distribution control apparatus includes:

means for maintaining a play list of ordered content titles for a user which can be displayed on a computer display device using either a web based interface or displayed on a television display using a set top box interface; and

means for updating the play list to reflect change made by either the set top box interface or the web based interface.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

stored user information including at least one of a STB identifier, E-mail address and telephone number which can be used to send content availability notifications to a user corresponding to the stored user information.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

a plurality of local content servers, said plurality of local content servers being coupled to at least one of said regional content servers, said system including more local content servers than regional content servers, said local content servers being coupled to customer premise equipment.

10. A content distribution method, comprising:

storing content on a content server used to stream content to a content playback device corresponding to a user;

storing content on a plurality of regional content servers, at least some of said regional content servers including long term and short term content stores;

storing content on a multi-region content server, coupled to said regional content servers, the multi-region content server including a data base including more content titles than individual ones of said regional content servers; and

controlling distribution of content in response to a request from said user for content that is not available at said content server used to stream content to the content playback device corresponding to said user, said step of controlling distribution including:

determining content servers which can supply the requested content;

generating estimates, for alternative content servers which can supply the requested content, of the amount of time required to deliver the requested content to the content server used to stream content to the content playback device corresponding to the user; and

selecting the server in said system to be used as the source of requested content based on the estimates of the amount of time requested to deliver the requested content to the content server used to supply content to the customer premise equipment of the customer, said selecting being based on the cost of delivering content from a content server which can supply the requested content to said content server used to stream content to the content playback device corresponding to the user, said selecting implementing a preference for lower cost links which can be used to deliver content to said content server used to stream content to the content playback device corresponding to the user even when it results in a longer delivery delay than if a content source corresponding to more costly links was selected.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

maintaining said servers in a hierarchical storage arrangement.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein said multi-region content server is a national content server which includes at least three time the data storage capacity of one of the individual regional content servers, the method further comprising:

storing at least three time the number of titles stored one of said plurality of regional content servers.

13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

receiving information indicating a content selection by a user;

determining if the content is available on a regional content server used to supply content to a content playback device corresponding to said user; and

when it is determined that the content is not available on the regional content server used to supply content to said content playback device corresponding to the user, determining if the selected content is available from the multi-region content server.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein when it is determined that the content is available from the multi-region content server, controlling the multi-region content server to supply the selected content to the regional content server used to supply content to the user.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

notifying the user of an estimated delay corresponding to a estimate of the amount of time before which the selected content will be ready for downloading to the said content playback device.

16. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

notifying the user when the requested content is available from the regional server used to supply content to the content playback device corresponding to the customer, said notification being in the form of at least one of a pop-up window notification, an Email notification and a SMS text message notification.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

deleting the content supplied from multi-region content server to the regional content server in response to the user selection after a predetermined amount of time in the absence of another request for said content from a user associated with the regional server.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:

storing information at a cable head end identifying a plurality of customer premise devices corresponding to said user; and

supplying the selected content to a plurality of the customer premise devices corresponding to said user.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:

updating a stored play list corresponding to said user in response to the request for content; and

supplying the updated play list to both a set top box and to a computer system which provide said user alternate ways of requesting content.

20. The method of claim 1 , where different regional servers correspond to different geographic regions.

21. The method of claim 20 , wherein said different regional servers are located at different locations.

22. The method of claim 4 , wherein said multi-region content server does not include all the video titles stored in said plurality of multi-region content servers.

23. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

operating a regional content server to receive content from a content distributor; and

operating the multi-region server to distribute the content uploaded to said regional content server.

24. The method of claim 4 , wherein a removal deadline is associated with at least some content stored in a short term content store of one of said regional content servers.

25. The method of claim 24 ,

wherein said removal deadline is a time, the method further comprising:

deleting said at least some content stored in the short term content store associated with said removal deadline at the time indicated by said removal deadline.