Patent ID: 7245819

Claim:
A method, comprising: assigning an identifier to each of a temporal sequence of files, wherein each file contains at least a part of a multimedia stream and each identifier is used to identify adjacent multimedia streams recorded from the same tuner, each multimedia stream containing one or more program fragments; storing a program start time in each file, wherein the program start time indicates the time of first receiving a program or the broadcast start time of the program; storing a file start time in the file, wherein the file start time indicates a time of receiving an earliest part of an earliest program fragment in the file; retrieving a file containing a multimedia stream part that contains a fragment of a program; using one of the assigned identifiers to retrieve an adjacent multimedia stream part to retrieve a program fragment stored in a different file, including: reading the program start time; reading the file start time; comparing the program start time and the file start time; if the file start time is later than the program start time, then reading the identifier of the preceding file and retrieving a preceding program fragment stored in the preceding file, wherein the time length of the preceding program fragment corresponds to the difference between the program start time and the file start time; and if the file start time is not later than the program start time then retrieving the program from the file.