Patent ID: 7652993

Claim:
A method for transmitting data streams from a transmitter to a plurality of receivers over a shared channel comprising: (a) a transmitter simultaneously transmitting a plurality of said data streams to said plurality of receivers over said shared channel subject to a joint delay constraint characterized by the equation ∑ j = i i + j - 1 ⁢ ⁢ r n , i = f n · H n · Δs n - B n ⁢ ⁢ n = 1 , 2 , … ⁢ , ⁢ N . where r n,j corresponds to the amount of bit used to encode frame j of stream n, f n denotes the channel utilization factor, H n denotes the expected bandwidth available for stream n, ΔS n denotes the time available until the target delivery time for stream n, B n denotes the backlog for stream n, and L denotes the number of video frames in the segment of video data (b) jointly and independently adapting the bit rates of the respective said data stream being transmitted in accordance with: (i) available bandwidths between the transmitter and respective said receivers; (ii) a general target time by which the data for respective said data streams should arrive at the respective said receivers; (iii) characteristics of respective said data streams relating respective bit rates to a quality measure by selectively varying at least one of: the respective channel utilization factors f n of the plurality of said data streams; and the respective target delivery times Δs n for the plurality of said data streams, by adjusting respective delay target factors Ω n for the plurality of said data streams.