Patent ID: 8032649

Claim:
A method for combining media shots on a server, comprising: receiving at the server a request from a client for a combined media shot, the request comprising at least one content identifier and instructions for combining a first media shot with a second media shot; determining a number of frames to include in the combined media shot; selecting in response to the request at least one frame from a first media shot, wherein the at least one frame from the first media shot comprises a frame selected from a group consisting of a video stream, an audio stream, a text stream, and a metadata stream; selecting in response to the request at least one frame from a second media shot; sorting the at least one frames from the first and second media shots according to a timestamp corresponding to each frame; modifying the at least one frame from the first media shot and the at least one frame from the second media shot corresponding to the request, wherein modifying comprises an alteration selected from a group consisting of a data encryption, a length modification, an encoding rate modification, a stream quantity modification, a file wrapper format modification, a video transformation processing, an audio transformation processing, and a metadata insertion; combining at the server the selected frames from the first and second media shots to form a portion of the combined media shot corresponding to the request, wherein the combined media shot comprises a plurality of portions; generating a format-applicable header or footer for the combined media shot; and serving from the server the portion of the combined media shot to the client, wherein the server is configured to serve the portion prior to completing formation of all of the portions of the combined media shot.