Patent ID: 7558869

Claim:
A method for adaptively controlling level of a receiver buffer in a client in a multimedia streaming network, the streaming network comprising a server for providing streaming data to the client, said method comprising: signaling to the server a message indicative of the receiver buffer level, wherein the receiver buffer is used to compensate for difference between data transmission amount by the server and data usage amount by the client so as to allow the client to have sufficient amount of streaming data to play-out in a non-disruptive manner, and wherein the data transmission amount by the server is determined at least partially by a timestamp clock in the server for data transmission scheduling; and adjusting at the server the data transmission amount in reference to the timestamp clock, based on the message, wherein the message comprises a time-shift message indicative of an effective time-shift on the timestamp clock so as to allow the server to adjust the data transmission amount in reference to the time-shifted timestamp clock.