Unicast endpoint clients (110, 111, 115) on an IP Unicast network
(107, 108) are provided access to Multicast sessions on an IP Multicast
network (101) through a Multicast-Unicast gateway server (120, 121).
The server obtains information about sessions on the Multicast network and makes
such information available to a Unicast client on the Unicast network upon request
by the client. Upon being presented with a list describing the subject matter of
each session, the user at the Unicast client selects the session to which he or
she wants to join, which causes the Multicast-Unicast server to join the appropriate
session on behalf of the requesting client for each media type in which the joining
client wants to be a participant. The server then sets a bi-directional Unicast
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) stream between itself and the client. All packets
then received by the server from the Unicast client are address-translated to the
appropriate Multicast session address. In addition, all packets received by the
server on the Multicast session address are address-translated and sent to the
Unicast client. The Unicast client is then able to participate in the Multicast
session as both a sender and a receiver of packets to and from other Unicast and
Multicast clients which are active during the session. Further, the Unicast client
is capable of creating a new session, recording a session in the network for later
retrieval and playback, and creating and accessing low bandwidth versions of existing sessions.