Patent ID: 7818444

Claim:
An apparatus for multi-bitrate video and/or audio content streaming, the apparatus comprising: one or more computing devices including, a receiving module configured to receive videos; a streamlet module configured to segment the media content received videos to generate for each a plurality of sequential raw streamlets that collectively store data to playback the entire video and that individually store data to playback only a portion that starts at a unique time index and whose duration is less than the entire duration of the corresponding video; an encoding module configured to encode each raw streamlet to generate, for each of said raw streamlets, a set including an encoded streamlet for each bitrate supported by the multi-bitrate content streaming, wherein each of the encoded streamlets in each of the sets is stored as a separate content file, wherein the encoded streamlets within each of the sets have the same time index as their corresponding raw streamlet such that the encoded streamlets of the same set independently yield on playback the same portion of the video, wherein the separate content files within each of the sets are independently requestable by end user stations, and wherein shifts between the different bit rates are made at the time indexes during streaming of each of the videos; and a web server to be coupled over the Internet to the end user stations to receive requests from the end user stations for different ones of the separate content files from different ones of the sets and to transmit the requested ones of the separate content files to the requesting one of the end user stations, wherein each of the end user stations initiate each of the shifts between the different bit rates during streaming of each of the videos through a request for the separate content file storing a different bit rate one of the encoded streamlets for a subsequent one of the time indexes.