1. A system for consolidating and marketing of financial products, including:
a server computer;
a provider computer coupled to the server computer;
an advisor computer coupled to the server computer;
an investor computer coupled to the server computer; and
instructions stored on the server computer that when executed on the server computer, perform a method including:
accepting financial product, advisor, and investor information;
allowing access to a portion of the financial product information, based on the investor information, directly with the server through the investor computer;
allowing access to another portion of the financial product information not accessible through the investor computer, based on the advisor information, through the advisor computer; and
tracking and reporting the advisor information and the investor information through metrics.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the metrics include total orders, orders fulfilled, conversion ratio, and average order size.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the portion of the financial product information accessed through the advisor computer includes advisor support information.
4. A machine-readable, non-transitory medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a process for consolidating and marketing of financial products including:
accepting financial product, advisor, and investor information;
allowing access to a portion of the financial product information, based on the client information, directly with the server through an investor computer;
allowing access to another portion of the financial product information not accessible through the investor computer, based on the advisor information, through an advisor computer; and
tracking and reporting the advisor information and the investor information through metrics.
5. The medium of claim 4, wherein the metrics include total orders, orders fulfilled, conversion ratio, and average order size.
6. The medium of claim 4, wherein the second portion includes advisor support information.
7. The medium of claim 6, wherein advisor support information includes due diligence activities and assessments.
8. The medium of claim 4, the computer further compiling the advisor information or investor information into a data file.
9. The medium of claim 8, the computer further generating a report based on the data file.
10. The medium of claim 9, wherein the report includes a log of accesses to the financial product information.
11. The medium of claim 4, wherein the portion of the financial information accessed through the advisor computer includes alternative financial products to financial products in the portion accessed by the investor computer.
12. The medium of claim 4, the computer further hosting an audiovisual conference via the investor computer and advisor computer.
13. The medium of claim 4, the computer further accepting and filling orders for financial products.
14. The medium of claim 4, the computer further ranking a plurality of advisors or investors according to the metrics.
15. The medium of claim 14, the computer further recommending a course of action regarding a particular advisor or regarding a particular investor based on the ranking.
16. A method, including:
accepting and storing financial product, advisor, and investor information;
allowing direct access to a portion of the financial product information, based on the client information, through an investor computer;
allowing access to another portion of the financial product information not accessible through the investor computer, based on the advisor information, through an advisor computer; and
tracking and reporting the advisor information and the investor information through metrics.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the metrics include total orders, orders fulfilled, conversion ratio, and average order size.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein a report generated from advisor information or investor information includes a log of accesses to the financial product information.
19. The method of claim 16, further including ranking a plurality of advisors or investors according to the metrics.
20. The method of claim 19, further including recommending a course of action regarding a particular advisor or regarding a particular investor based on the ranking.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method of preventing disruption of a media stream transmitted across a lossy network, the method comprising:
applying a lost packet recovery algorithm to the media stream, wherein the lost packet recovery algorithm inserts redundant information into a transmitted data stream including the media stream to permit reconstruction of one or more lost packets; and
applying a congestion avoidance algorithm to the transmitted data stream, wherein the congestion avoidance algorithm, if there has been no packet loss above a first predetermined threshold for a predetermined period of time:
temporarily increases a data rate of the transmitted data stream by increasing the amount of redundant information inserted into the transmitted data stream;
receives channel information from the network including packet loss and monitoring the packet loss to determine whether the network can support the higher data rate of the transmitted data stream; and
if the packet loss remains below a second predetermined threshold, increases a bit rate of the media stream while maintaining the higher data rate of the transmitted data stream.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the redundant information comprises one or more recovery packets.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the number of recovery packets depends on the packet loss determined from RTCP receiver reports.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the lost packet recovery algorithm includes:
forward erasure correction coding; or
Reed-Solomon encoding.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the media stream comprises video data.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein applying a lost packet recovery algorithm to the media stream comprises:
determining a protection period;
determining a total number of packets per protection period; and
determining a number of recovery packets per protection period.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein the protection period is determined according to the bit rate of the media stream.
8. The method of claim 6 further comprising adjusting lost packet recovery protection parameters, LPR protection parameters, as a function of the bit rate of the media stream.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein adjusting LPR protection parameters as a function of the bit rate of the media stream comprises:
dynamically adapting the packet size of the data andor recovery packets; or
sending empty data packets.
10. A media encoding apparatus for preventing disruption of a media stream transmitted across a lossy network, the media encoding apparatus comprising:
a media encoder; and
one or more lost packet recovery modules, wherein the one or more lost packet recovery modules comprise a programmable control device and a memory, the memory being configured to store and the programmable control device being configured to execute instructions causing the meia encoding apparatus to:
insert redundant information into a transmitted data stream including the media stream to permit reconstruction of one or more lost packets; and
if there has been no packet loss above a first predetermined threshold for a predetermined period of time:
temporarily increase a data rate of the transmitted data stream by increasing the amount of redundant information inserted into the transmitted data stream;
receive channel information from the network including packet loss and monitor the packet loss to determine whether the network can support the higher data rate of the transmitted data stream; and
if the packet loss remains below a second predetermined threshold, increase a bit rate of the media stream while maintaining the higher date rate of the transmitted data stream.
11. The media encoding apparatus of claim 10 wherein the media encoding apparatus is further configured to determine lost packet recovery protection parameters, LPR protection parameters, from the channel information.
12. The media encoding apparatus of claim 10 wherein the media encoding apparatus is a video encoder.
13. The media encoding apparatus of claim 10 wherein the LPR protection parameters are determined by:
determining a protection period;
determining a total number of packets per protection period; and
determining a number of recovery packets per protection period.
14. The media encoding apparatus of claim 10 wherein a payload of the recovery packet is encoded using Reed-Solomon encoding.