Patent ID: 7860005

Claim:
A method of streaming data, said method comprising: accessing data-related information at a streaming server that quantifies a characteristic associated with a frame in a sequence comprising a plurality of frames of video data in addition to information that identifies frame type and in addition to information identifying the position of said frame in said sequence, said data-related information comprising information quantifying for said frame an amount of distortion predicted to occur if said frame not be sent or received, wherein said data-related information establishes a relative importance of frames in said plurality of frames, wherein each of said frames in said plurality of frames is given a priority rank as to each other based on how many of said plurality of frames are dependent on said each of said frames; and using said data-related information at said streaming server to make a decision associated with transmission of said frames, wherein said decision comprises at least one of an error concealment approach and a motion compensation approach, said error concealment approach comprising replacing a missing frame or partial frame with associated information from a neighboring frame, said motion compensation approach comprising estimating a motion between said frames and applying a motion-compensated replacement using a previous frame or a motion-compensated interpolation using both previous and future frames.