Patent ID: 8909806

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing streaming media from a server to a client, the method comprising: receiving a manifest request from the client; building a client manifest to satisfy the client request based on media fragments and encoder information the server has received, wherein the client manifest specifies one or more media fragments associated with a media event and wherein each media fragment is structured to be individually cacheable by a network cache server by providing a defined request format for each fragment for which any client using the defined format to request the fragment will receive the same response and wherein fragment requests for different encodings of the same streaming media map to the same point within a media presentation; providing the built client manifest to the client in response to the manifest request; receiving a fragment request from a client that identifies a particular media fragment; building an incremental manifest by retrieving manifest information that describes the requested media fragment, the incremental manifest further comprising information for one or more media fragments received by the server subsequent to building of the client manifest; sending a response to the client fragment request that includes the requested media fragment and the built incremental manifest; wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor and wherein the server provides media fragments to multiple clients without storing state information regarding each of the clients.