Patent ID: 7969997

Claim:
A system for communicating packetized video over a peer-to-peer packet-based network using packet-by-packet video transmission scheduling, the system comprising: a video source configured to provide a packet-based video stream to the peer-to-peer packet-based network; a plurality of peer packet-based devices arranged to form a plurality of peer-to-peer trees and coupled to the peer-to-peer packet-based network to receive and display video packets, to send video packets to other peers in the peer-to-peer packet-based network; and wherein the video source and the plurality of peer packet-based devices are configured to facilitate video communications for passing video data from the video source to the plurality of peer packet-based devices in a packet stream by mapping each video packet to a corresponding peer-to-peer tree of the plurality of peer-to-peer trees; assigning relative priorities between packets in the packet stream based upon an effect of the packets in the packet stream upon a quality of video at the plurality of peer packet-based devices and upon a number of peers that the packets are to be subsequently delivered; processing each packet in the packet stream in order of their priority relative to other packets in the packet stream; temporally spacing the packets in the packet stream to mitigate congestion on the peer-to-peer packet-based network; and transmitting the temporally spaced packets.