Patent ID: 8300530

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a stream of packets of encoded data sent by a transmitter across a network, the stream of packets including n+1 packets having transmittal timestamps from a clock local to the transmitter, n being an integer greater than or equal to one and wherein the stream of packets further includes at least one packet that does not contain a transmittal timestamp from a clock local to the transmitter; determining an n+1 th transmittal timestamp; determining an nth transmittal timestamp; determining a number of packets k received between the n+1 th transmittal timestamp and the nth transmittal timestamp; calculating an expected time interval between consecutive packets based on k and the n+1 th and the nth transmittal timestamps; using the calculated expected time interval between consecutive packets and a measured time interval between consecutive packets in the stream of packets to calculate a maximum theoretical time interval between consecutive packets; and calculating a Delay Factor (DF) of a Media Delivery Index (MDI) for the network based on the calculated maximum theoretical time interval between consecutive packets, wherein calculating an expected time interval per packet based on the n+1 th and the n th transmittal timestamps further comprises: determining a first difference between the n+1 th and the n th transmittal timestamps wherein calculating an expected time interval per packet based on k and the n+1 th and the nth transmittal timestamps comprises: determining a ratio of the first difference to k; calculating a first factor based on the ratio, wherein the first factor corresponds to a size of a virtual buffer just before arrival of a selected packet; and calculating a second factor based on the ratio, wherein the second factor corresponds to a size of the virtual buffer just after arrival of the selected packet.