Patent ID: 8166191

Claim:
A method performed by data processing apparatus, comprising: communicating with a remote device to stream media content to the remote device; accessing hint information associated with the media content, the hint information comprising message headers, arranged in a transmission order sequence, that correspond to respective media data samples, the message headers being interleaved with the media data samples on a track, the media data samples including one or more video samples and one or more audio samples, wherein separate ones of the media data samples are arranged as message payload data for corresponding ones of the message headers, wherein separate ones of the message headers comprise a message stream identifier, a message type identifier, a timestamp, and a message length value; and transmitting a data stream to the remote device, the data stream comprising messages arranged in the transmission order sequence, wherein separate ones of the messages are based on a different one of the message headers and a corresponding different one of the media data samples, wherein accessing hint information comprises accessing a document that comprises a hint segment, a first media metadata track, a second media metadata track, and a hint metadata track, wherein the hint segment comprises the message headers and the media data samples, wherein the hint metadata track includes pointers to respective ones of the message headers, wherein the first media metadata track includes, in lieu of samples, one or more pointers to corresponding one or more audio samples of the media data samples within the hint segment, and wherein the second media metadata track includes, in lieu of samples, one or more pointers to corresponding one or more video samples of the media data samples within the hint segment.