Method and apparatus for employing stored content at receivers to improve efficiency of broadcast system bandwidth use

Abstract

A receiver unit in a digital broadcast system receives a broadcast signal comprising content segments and control data, and generates an output signal using the content segments and previously stored content segments. The previously stored content segments are retrieved from a local memory device using the control data for playback and can be inserted among received content segments.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A user device comprising:
 a memory device to store predefined content segments prior to receiving a signal for controlling playback of the predefined content segments;   a device configured to receive a signal transmitted via a content transmission system, the received signal comprising segments of program content and segments of control data; and   a processing device configured to generate an output signal to a user to playback content in accordance with the received signal using the control data in the received signal to access selected the predefined content segments from the memory device, and playing back the selected the predefined content segments in the output signal in accordance with the control data;   wherein the memory device comprises index data with which to identify each of the predefined content segments stored therein, and the control data in the received signal comprises selected the index data corresponding to the selected the predefined content segments to access the predefined content segments corresponding thereto from the memory device.