Patent ID: 7834904

Claim:
A video transmission system, comprising: a video source; a video server adapted to receive video data from the video source, the video server operable to buffer the video data and transmit the video data across a network; and a video retransmitter residing on a first computing device and adapted to receive the video data via the network from the video server, said video retransmitter operable to buffer the video data and re-transmit the video data to a second computing device, wherein the second computing device is configured to receive the video data from either the video server or the video retransmitter, and operable to select either the video server or the video retransmitter as a source for the video data based on a metric associated with the transmission path of the video data from the source, wherein the video server receives the video data at a first resolution and the retransmitter is operable to re-transmit the video data at a second resolution different from the first resolution.