NEAR-VIDEO-ON-DEMAND DIGITAL VIDEO DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM UTILIZING ASYMMETRIC DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINES (ADSL)

A system for distribution of near-video-on-demand (NVOD) program information featuring use of ADSL telephone links. In NVOD, video program material is divided into segments which are spooled from a server into threads which contain the program information, but at times offset from each other. Telco central offices or other nodes are linked to each other by a publicly accessible network, such as the Internet, with either the telco central offices or Internet nodes providing thread replication so that service requests from a plurality of users may be met. At the telco central offices or nodes the threads may be multiplexed together for transmission over wideband channels, such as T1, OC3 or the like, while incoming threads are demultiplexed and routed to subscribers on ADSL channels. Each ADSL channel has a wideband portion operating in one direction and a narrow band portion operating in the opposite direction. The wideband portion feeds video material to subscriber settop boxes, with the spooling rate from the video server selected to be slightly less than the wideband portion bandwidth. The narrowband portion transmits service requests and user data to the server. Each settop box has a buffer which stores the current segment of the video program and is replenished with the next segment just before the current segment is used, so that the video program runs continuously.