Patent ID: 8351437

Claim:
A system, comprising: a source communication device comprising: a memory to store instructions; and a processor configured to: estimate a difference in sampling rate between a source streaming clock and a sink streaming clock, where the source streaming clock is associated with processing of audio or video data in the source communication device, and where the sink streaming clock is associated with processing of audio or video data in a sink communication device; estimate a drift between the source streaming clock and the sink streaming clock based on the estimated difference in sampling rate between the source streaming clock and the sink streaming clock; set a time stamp interval associated with a source network clock that controls timing of communication in a network comprising the source communication device and the sink communication device, where the time stamp interval is based on the estimated drift between the source streaming clock and the sink streaming clock; detect whether a condition to generate a time stamp is satisfied, the condition being based on the time stamp interval associated with the source network clock; and in response to detecting the condition to generate the time stamp is satisfied: generate, using a time stamp generator, a time stamp that includes a source network clock value derived from the source network clock and a source streaming clock value derived from the source streaming clock; and incorporate the time stamp into a data unit using a time stamp insertion mechanism; and a communication interface to transmit the data unit to one of the other devices in the network.