Patent ID: 8473631

Claim:
A method for providing near real-time video data to a consumer system, the data provided by a data server receiving the data from a publisher system, the method comprising: (a) receiving video data from the publisher system at a first transmission rate, the video data associated with a plurality of video frames; (b) updating a first indicator identifying the most recent video frame received at the data server from the publisher system; (c) receiving a request for the video data from a consumer system associated with a second transmission rate, the second transmission rate higher than the first transmission rate; (d) providing or transmitting information to the consumer system for enabling the consumer system to establish a direct connection via a computer network; (e) providing or transmitting the video data to the consumer system in response to receiving the request for the video data; (f) updating a second indicator identifying the most recent video frame provided to the consumer system; (g) determining whether available video data at the data server includes a video frame that had not yet been provided or transmitted to the consumer system by comparing the first and second indicators; and (h) providing to the consumer system the video frame that had not yet been provided or transmitted to the consumer system in response to determining that the video frame had not yet been provided or transmitted to the consumer system and returning to step (f).