The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 27, 2013
Filed:
Jun. 15, 2011
Chetley T. Laughlin, Seattle, WA (US);
Chetley T. Laughlin, Seattle, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A media server reduces media streaming bandwidth by synchronizing start times of media streams sent to clients requesting a particular set of media or other data. The server starts new streams periodically or when it has received a certain number of requests, resulting in multiple streams delivering the media to multiple clients. The streams can be delivered using multicast technologies. Overall media stream bandwidth is further reduced by merging streams. At some point after a stream has become active, a client receiving data from a current stream has enough media stored locally to ensure smooth playback of the media if the client is switched to a trailing stream. A client can switch to a trailing stream after the speed of the current stream is throttled down and the current stream becomes synchronized with the trailing stream. Multiple streams can be merged simultaneously, and streams can be merged multiple times.