Patent ID: 8626939

Claim:
A method of controlling play out of a generated audio data stream from a client data stream player, the method comprising: at a server, receiving a request, from a client data stream player, to generate an audio stream by converting textual data received from the client data stream player; at the server, receiving, from a client, textual data to be generated by the server to an audio stream; at the server, estimating a generation time for generating the audio stream; at the server, estimating a time to play the generated audio stream at a data stream player; at the server, generating the audio stream using data received from the client and a data stream generation resource, the audio stream for output by the client data stream player; buffering at the client, the audio stream generated at the server, waiting at the client for an alert from the server indicating that a remaining generation time is not more than a remaining play time; sending an alert from the server to the client if remaining generation time for generating the audio stream using the data stream generation resource is not more than remaining play time; and maintaining a rate of generation at an initial rate or faster after the alert has been sent, wherein generating the audio stream has a priority and the priority is raised in order to maintain the rate of generation of the audio stream after the alert has been sent.