Patent ID: 6988144

Claim:
A method for scheduling the delivery of data packets representing one or more media data tracks, said method allowing the data packets to be delivered from a server to a client with a given bandwidth so as to minimize the initial delay required for the client to present the data without interruption, said method including the steps of: creating a list of virtual data packets representative of all data packets to be scheduled for delivery from the server to the client; calculating a delivery deadline for each virtual data packet based on the communications bandwidth from the server to the client and a point in time at which the client must act on the data, wherein the delivery deadline for each virtual data packet is calculated as t (deadline)= t (start)−(packetsize)/bandwidth) where t(start) is the point in time when the client needs to act on the data contained in the packet, (packetsize) is the number of bytes in the corresponding data packet, and (bandwidth) is the communications bandwidth from the server to the client in bytes per second; sorting the list of virtual data packets based on the delivery deadlines calculated for each virtual data packet, to provide a sorted list; and delivering the data packets in accordance with the sorted list.