Patent ID: 8635360

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a device, a demand to present a segment of a media object, wherein the media object includes key frames and frames encoded based upon the key frames, the segment begins at a starting playback point of the media object after an initial playback point of the media object, and the device has not yet received any data that is within the segment when the demand to present the segment of the media object is received; outputting, by the device, in response to receiving the demand, a request for range identification data associated with the media object, wherein the request specifies a resource identifier associated with all data in the media object and the range identification data includes: information for identifying at least one portion of the media object that includes the metadata; and a key frame list comprising respective byte indexes associated with key frames of the media object; receiving, by the device, the range identification data in response to the request for range identification data; determining, by the device, a first range of the media object based upon the information, wherein the first range includes metadata employable for converting the data in the media object within a second range from a first encoding format into a second encoding format and the data that is within the segment of the media object is within the second range; identifying, by the device, a lower end of the second range as a first byte index associated with a first key frame closest to the starting playback point of the segment; and identifying, by the device, an upper end of the second range as a second byte index associated with a second key frame closest to an ending playback point of the media object corresponding to an end of the segment.