Patent ID: 8843972

Claim:
A method of requesting video data, a plurality of different portions of the video data being distributed across a plurality of video servers connected to a communications network, said method comprising: transmitting a request from a client to a first one of the video servers, each of the video servers comprising a network data record including information indicating a time range of each of the portions of video data stored on a corresponding one of the video servers, the request including information about a time range of the requested video data; determining whether a first portion of the video data locally stored on the first video server, or whether other video data stored on the other video servers, should be transmitted to the client by comparing the time range information included in the request to start times of each of the portions of video data stored on each of the video servers; and transmitting, from the first video server to the client, the first portion of video data and a redirection message, the redirection message comprising information about a next one of the video servers containing a further portion of the video data, the further portion of video data being temporally adjacent to the first portion of video data, the redirection message further comprising a remaining time range of the temporally adjacent further portion of video data, the remaining time range being generated by adjusting the time range information included in the request.