Patent ID: 7844725

Claim:
A method of determining an adaptable encoding rate of a signal transmitted from a data-streaming server to a client device through a time-varying connection, the method comprising: employing at least one processor in said data streaming-server for performing the following: determining a current encoding rate for said connection; acquiring measurements of a specific characteristic of said connection over a time window covering a number, W, of measurements; determining a metric μ of said specific characteristic from said measurements; accepting said current encoding rate conditional on a value of μ being within a predefined acceptance interval having a lower bound μ 1 and an upper bound μ 2 ; and adjusting said current encoding rate by one of: a factor χ 2 <1 for a value of μ exceeding said upper bound μ 2 of said acceptance interval; and a factor χ 1 >1 for a value of μ below said lower bound μ 1 of said acceptance interval; wherein said specific characteristic comprises a data-loss ratio and said metric is a data-loss ratio θ determined over said time window, wherein μ 1 and μ 2 >μ 1 are bounds of an accetable data-loss ratio, wherein said factor χ 1 is determined as predetermined multiplier χ>1 when θ is less than μ 1 , and wherein said factor χ 2 is determined as (1−θ) for θ>μ 2 .