Patent ID: 7047307

Claim:
A method for providing a media object to a client from a server coupled to the client via a connection, the media object being fragmented into segments in accordance with a fragmentation sequence from a first segment to a last segment, each segment comprising a respective number of frames of media content in a respective succession from a first frame to a last frame, the media content associated with each of the segments being provided on a corresponding stream in accordance with the succession from the fist frame to the last frame, the method comprising the steps of: downloading media content at the client from a first number of the streams on the connection, the first number of the streams including the corresponding stream to the first segment; halting the downloading of media content from the corresponding stream to the first segment on the connection when the respective number of frames of the first segment have been received on the corresponding stream; downloading media content at the client from a next stream corresponding to a next segment in the fragmentation sequence on the connection after the halting step; starting the step of downloading from the next stream at a point in the respective succession between the first frame and the last frame, wherein the corresponding stream to the first segment has a first bandwidth, and the next stream corresponding to the next segment has a second bandwidth different than the first bandwidth; and constraining the first bandwidth so as to provide a desired service latency including the step of constraining the first bandwidth b m 1 associated with the first segment s m 1 in accordance with a desired service latency w m , such that b m 1 = ∑ i ∈ S m 1 ⁢ f m i w m , wherein denotes f m i the number of bits in the i-th frame of the media object.