Patent ID: 8477950

Claim:
A method of operation of a home theater component in a home theater comprising a plurality of home theater components including the home theater component, comprising: receiving a media content stream destined for the home theater component from a virtualized home theater service via a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection, wherein the media content stream has a plurality of absolute playback timestamps and is one of a plurality of media content streams sent from the virtualized home theater service to the plurality of home theater components in order for desired multimedia content to be presented at the home theater, and the plurality of media content streams comprises a different media content stream for each of the plurality of home theater components; providing playback of the media content stream according to the plurality of absolute playback timestamps for the media content stream, wherein providing playback of the media content stream comprises delaying the media content stream according to a delay adjustment value; and controlling the delay adjustment value during playback of the media content stream based on the plurality of absolute playback timestamps for the media content stream, wherein controlling the delay adjustment value comprises, for each absolute playback timestamp of at least a subset of the plurality of absolute playback timestamps for the media content stream, updating the delay adjustment value based on a difference between an absolute playback time defined by the absolute playback timestamp and a current time.