Patent ID: 7310678
Filing Date: 2007-12-18
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A delivery system for use in a client server computer architecture in which the server provides streaming media assets to at least one client over a computer network, wherein the media assets can have a plurality of data formats, comprising: a packet producer that acquires at least one streaming media asset in packetized form and places time stamps on the packets, each time stamp specifying a delivery time for its respective packet, wherein the packet producer adjusts the delivery time of at least one time stamp in accordance with a value indicating a maximum buffer size of a receiving client; a time stamp packet queue containing the packets with time stamps in a first in, first out order; and a feeder module that removes packets from the time stamp packet queue and transmits the removed packets to a client via the computer network according to the time stamp in each packet, the transmission for each packet concluded at least by the specified delivery time in each packet; wherein the feeder module is further operative to control the admission of streaming media assets into the feeder that are to be delivered to a client, the control of admission and comprising: defining a time window in terms of a first duration of time; computing a number of bytes that need to be delivered during the time window, the bytes comprising a first streaming media asset; translating the computed number of bytes into a first time to process value for the first streaming media asset; and admitting for delivery the first streaming media asset if the first time to process value is smaller than the time window.