Patent ID: 8549164

Claim:
A media server, comprising: a communicator for communicating with a user terminal; a media transmitter for transmitting media content to the user terminal in a streaming form through the communication unit; a content storage for dividing the media content into a plurality of video streams, having respective stream numbers, and storing the video streams; a stream determinator for determining a video stream to be transmitted based on play position information received from the user terminal; a stream switch for selecting the video stream to be transmitted, from the content storage, based on information determined by the stream determinator; and a controller for, while the media content is streamed to the user terminal, selecting a video stream nearest to the play position information based on the play position information received from the user terminal and controlling the selected video stream so that the selected video stream is transmitted to the user terminal; wherein if the play position information is the time t, the controller searches an N th video stream for an I frame (or an IDR frame) nearest to the time t and, if the I frame (or the IDR frame) is a P th frame, transmits frames to the user terminal starting with the P th frame of the N th video stream, and wherein after transmitting the N th video stream, the controller searches an (N+1) th video stream for a next I frame (or an IDR frame) nearest to the time t and, if the next I frame (or the IDR frame) is a q th frame, transmits frames to the user terminal starting with the q th frame of the (N+1) th video stream.