Patent ID: 8683066

Claim:
An apparatus for multi-bitrate video and/or audio content streaming, the apparatus comprising an end user station, comprising: a content player, to be executed on the end user station, to playback videos, wherein each of the videos are encoded as a plurality of streamlets, wherein each of the plurality of streamlets is an encoded representation of a portion of one of the videos, and each streamlets representing each portion of one of the videos is encoded at a plurality of bitrates supported by the multi-bitrate content streaming; a client module, to be executed on the end user station, coupled to the content player and to be coupled to a set of one or more servers over a network, wherein the client module is configured to request the streamlets for playback of the videos on the content player; a timeline module to be executed on the end user station and configured to maintain a programming lineup of one or more of the videos, wherein the client module is configured to request the streamlets for playback of the one or more videos on the content player according to the programming lineup, wherein the timeline module is configured to maintain the programming lineup using information from a virtual timeline (VT) file anchored to a real-world time, wherein the VT file defines an order of playback of the one or more videos identified by one or more media extension (MX) files, wherein each of the one or more MX files describes a physical clip of video using multi-bitrate streamlet information, including location information of the streamlets of the respective physical clip of video and bitrate values of the streamlets of the respective physical clip of video, and wherein the client module is configured to use the location information of the one or more MX files when requesting the streamlets associated with the respective physical clip of video for playback on the content player, wherein the client module requests the streamlets for playback of one of the plurality of bitrates supported by the multi-bitrate content streaming based upon a current read ahead margin and a minimum safety margin.