Patent ID: 8099511

Claim:
A method of providing media-on-demand services over a network, the method being implemented using one or more processors that perform steps comprising: on one or more servers that provide the services, communicating with a plurality of devices in order to receive a playback request for a desired media content in a library of media content from a first device; responsive to receiving the playback request for the desired media content, selecting two or more second devices from a plurality of devices that communicate with the one or more servers, in order to transmit two or more distributed objects that can be played back to produce the media content on the first device, wherein each of the two or more distributed objects includes decimated data blocks from data pertaining to the media content so that each of the two or more distributed objects includes a different set of data blocks, each set of data blocks comprising every n-th data block of the decimated data blocks with n being an integer; and enabling the first device to achieve instantaneous and continuous playback of the desired media content by (i) seeding the first device with a header segment for each media content of the library, including the desired media content, (ii) initiating instant playback of the desired media content using the header segment of the desired media content, (iii) causing the two or more second devices, that are each independently capable of making the playback request for any media content in the library, to transmit the two or more distributed objects of the desired media content concurrently to the first device, and (iv) multiplexing the header segment with the two or more distributed objects that are transmitted to the first device from the two or more second devices, concurrently, in order to restore an original order in which the distributed objects are to be played back.