Patent ID: 7426696

Claim:
A method for pre-fetching data for displaying graphical images associated with media asset records, said method comprising: receiving a browsing request at a terminal device; displaying a catalog list for all of the media asset records stored on the terminal device, each of the media asset records is associated with one of a plurality of graphical images stored on a server located remotely from the terminal device; monitoring a first record position in the catalog list controlled by a first user scroll and detecting a speed of the first user scroll; when the speed is slower than a predefined time interval, establishing the first record position as a currently viewed media asset record; when a particular image associated with the currently viewed media asset record is unavailable in a local image windowing cache, displaying text data of the currently viewed media asset record along with a message indicating the particular image is being fetched from the server, and inserting the particular image into the image windowing cache; otherwise, displaying text data of the currently viewed media asset record along with the particular image; pre-fetching additional n images from the server in accordance with a user scroll direction; inserting the additional n images into the image windowing cache; and continue monitoring a second record position in the catalog list controlled by a second user scroll.