Patent ID: 7797064

Claim:
An apparatus for playing a pre-determined sequence of content segments, comprising: a processor; and a memory that stores at least one control program usable by the processor to control the playing of a predetermined sequence of content segments, and wherein the apparatus is configured to: in response to initiation of play of a content segment, initiate downloading to a pre-buffer cache of a portion of each of a number of content segments which are, in the pre-determined sequence, subsequent to the playing content segment; in response to skipping to a target content segment of the predetermined sequence of content segments whose portion has been downloaded to the pre-buffer cache, initiate play of the downloaded portion of the target content segment; and to while playing the downloaded portion of the target content segment, initiate downloading of the rest of the target content segment, wherein the pre-determined sequence of content segments is scheduled by a multimedia scheduler configured to schedule content segments for network broadcast, and wherein the multimedia scheduler comprises: at least one work manager for each of a plurality of channels serviced, the work manager including at least one producer thread, a task queue and at least one worker thread; and one or more scheduler objects associated with each producer thread, wherein the work manager and associated scheduler objects create and maintain a broadcast schedule for each of the channels according to predefined criteria, wherein said at least one producer thread checks a channel at configurable intervals and increments the channel's schedule by generating a work request and placing it in the task queue, wherein the worker threads execute the work requests, and wherein the multimedia scheduler is scalable to service the plurality of broadcast channels and/or services simultaneously.