Patent ID: 9538254
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04N

Claim:
1. A master element for a distributed playback architecture for media data, comprising: a payload data source for providing payload data packets; a beacon packet creator for creating beacon packets useable for synchronizing a playback process of the payload data packets at least one slave element in the distributed playback architecture; a network interface for transmitting an interleaved packet stream to the at least one slave element, the interleaved packet stream comprising the payload data packets provided by the payload data source and the beacon packets created by the beacon packet creator; a response packet evaluator for evaluating response packets issued by the at least one slave element in response to the beacon packet by determining a network latency between a first time instant at which a particular beacon packet was transmitted by the master element and a second time instant at which the particular beacon packet was received by the slave element, wherein the response packet evaluator is adapted to measure a total roundtrip time between the first time instant and a third time instant at which a corresponding response packet was received at the master element; and wherein the response packet evaluator is further adapted to determine the network latency on the basis of the measured total roundtrip time; wherein the beacon packet creator is adapted to comprise the determined network latency for the at least one slave element in a subsequent beacon packet, and wherein an estimated time of arrival of the beacon packet at the slave element is estimated to be equal to or greater than 55% of the total roundtrip time, thus enabling the master element to determine the network latency of the slave element.