Patent ID: 8234385

Claim:
A method in a media remoting scenario, the method comprising: beginning a media format negotiation between a server and a client before playing of media data; identifying communications for the media format negotiation with a request by the client of at least one media data format and a notification of constructing a media topology responsive to the at least one media data format; sending to the client the at least one media data format being requested as part of the media format negotiation; receiving from the client the notification that indicates when an attempt to construct at the client the media topology responsive to the at least one media data format was a success or a failure; controlling timing of data flow in the media topology, wherein the data flow is controlled through a clock through a client reception source node, one or more of intermediate nodes, and a sink node; when the notification indicates that the attempt to construct at the client the media topology responsive to the at least one media data format was a success, constructing the media topology based at least in part on: the client reception source node receiving the media data that is unrendered in transit from the server, the client reception source node forwarding the media data to the one or more of the intermediate nodes of a media topology nodal chain of the media topology; the one or more of the intermediate nodes performing decoding on the media data to transform the media data, the one or more of the intermediate nodes forwarding the transformed media data to the sink node; and the sink node rendering the decoded media data on a device at the client; and when the notification indicates that the attempt to construct at the client the media topology responsive to the at least one media data format was a failure, sending to the client a different media data format as part of the media format negotiation.