Patent ID: 8542705

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a first media stream including a first plurality of frames, the first media stream received at a streaming server and maintained in a first buffer, the streaming server configured to receive the first media stream from a media aggregation server, wherein a plurality of buffers at the streaming server are allocated on a per group of pictures (GOP) basis; receiving a second media stream including a second plurality of frames, the second media stream received at the streaming server and maintained in a second buffer; determining positions of a plurality of key frames in the first buffer and the second buffer, the plurality of key frames including a first key frame in the first buffer and a second key frame in the second buffer, wherein determining positions of the plurality of key frames includes determining at the streaming server a group of pictures (GOP) size N and identifying Nth frames following the first key frame as subsequent key frames; receiving a channel change request from a client device receiving the first media stream, the channel change request corresponding to a switch from the first media stream to the second media stream; identifying a next available key frame associated with the second media stream, wherein the next available key frame is provided as the second key frame in response to the channel change request, wherein no predictive frames are transmitted at the beginning of the channel change request.