Patent ID: 8209429

Claim:
A method of streaming multimedia from a multimedia server to a client, said method comprising: providing a stream of video data representing a video sequence to an output of the multimedia server for transmission to the client, wherein the output of the media server and an input to the client are connected to a packet based network; measuring a property of the video data in order to determine the occurrence of a scene change in the video sequence; detecting the available bandwidth on the network between the server and the client, selecting between multiple different possible streams of video data which encode the same video sequence at correspondingly differing bit rates and associated quality levels based on the detected available bandwidth on the network, the different possible streams comprising a current stream and one or more other streams, in the case that one of the one or more other streams is selected in preference to the current stream in response to a variation in the available bandwidth on the network, switching from the current stream to the selected one of the one or more other streams preferentially with a scene change in the video sequence, and providing the selected stream to the output of the multimedia server for transmission to the client, wherein the source of video data is encoded in real-time, and wherein upon detecting a change of the available bandwidth on the network between the server and client that is greater than a predetermined amount of bandwidth to cause a new stream of video data having a different bit rate to the current stream of video data to be selected for transmission, switching to the newly selected stream of video data only after the elapsement of a predetermined period of time, unless a change of scene is detected prior to elapsement of the predetermined period of time, in which case the stream of video data is switched from the current stream of video data to the newly selected stream of video data at the detected change of scene.