Patent ID: 7657644

Claim:
A method for providing streaming media data to a client system comprising: receiving at a streaming media cache a request from a first client system for a media meta file associated with a stream of Microsoft Media Streaming (MMS) media data, the media meta file having information identifying the stream of media data including a unicast uniform resource locator (URL) for the stream of media data, the request being a request for a unicast connection to the stream of media data; modifying the media meta file to replace the unicast URL of the media meta file with an IP multicast channel including a multicast IP address, a port number, and an indicator for a Windows Media stream format for the stream of media data; sending the modified media meta file to the first client system in response to the request, the modified media meta file indicating the multicast channel for the stream of media data in place of the unicast URL for the media meta file; determining whether the stream of media data is cached at the streaming media cache; accessing the cached stream of media data if the stream of media data is cached at the streaming media cache; otherwise, accessing the stream of media data from a media server with the unicast URL; and providing the stream of media data on the multicast channel to provide access to the stream of media data to the first client system.