Patent ID: 7191243

Claim:
In a data broadcast system comprising one or more streams for broadcasting data to client systems, wherein the data broadcast system broadcasts a variety of data at particular times in order to meet demand for the variety of data at the client systems, a method of generating a data stream of a specified bandwidth for broadcast to one or more client systems, the method comprising acts of: storing an identifier for at least one data source, the identifier indicating where data to be included within the data stream may be obtained and a bandwidth allocation associated with requirements for broadcasting the data; for each identifier, storing scheduling information that comprises a time when the data from the at least one data source should be added to the data stream for broadcast to the one or more client systems, and wherein the scheduling information further comprises at least one of a retransmission frequency when said data includes static data or a refresh frequency when said data includes dynamic data, and such that the existing scheduling information is used to determine availability of bandwidth within the data stream; requesting and receiving the data from the at least one data source; and at the time specified in the scheduling information, adding the data obtained from the at least one data source to the data stream, wherein the data is broadcast to the one or more client systems in accordance with the scheduling information.