Patent ID: 7668170

Claim:
A method of transmitting, between a sender and a receiver, a data stream, wherein the data stream comprises a plurality of data units in a transmission order in a buffer, wherein the plurality of data units comprises a first data unit at the front of the buffer and other data units following the first data unit, the method comprising the steps of: determining a first set of one or more data units based on the data units in the buffer, wherein each data unit in the first set is marked for transmission based on a transmission condition; reading the first data unit at the front of the buffer; and if the first data unit is not part of the determined first set of data units and a priority associated with the first data unit meets an upper threshold condition, then determining a second set of one or more data units, wherein the second set of data units comprises one or more data units later in the transmission order than the first data unit, each of the data units in the second set meets a lower priority threshold and the data units in the second set are in a consecutive transmission order and one of the data units in the second set is a data unit second in transmission order in the buffer; determining one or more data units in the buffer to be dropped based on the determined second set of data units; dropping the determined one or more data units in the buffer; and transmitting, by a transmitter, the first data unit in the buffer with the first data unit associated with a modified time value; wherein the modified time value comprises an offset value to provide a range of time values, wherein the range of time values indicate to a receiver that the transmitted first data unit is presented at a time between a presentation deadline associated with the first data unit and a presentation deadline of a data unit that is a number of position away from the first data unit, wherein the number of position away is the offset value.