Abstract: A priority progress media-streaming system provides quality-adaptive transmission of multimedia in a shared heterogeneous network environment, such as the Internet. The system may include a server-side streaming media pipeline that transmits a stream of media packets that encompass a multimedia (e.g., video) presentation. Ones of the media packets correspond to a segment of the multimedia presentation that is transmitted based upon packet priority labeling and is out of time sequence from other media packets corresponding to the segment. A client side streaming media pipeline receives the stream of media packets, orders them in time sequence, and renders the multimedia presentation from the ordered media packets. In addition, a scalable priority progress multicast streaming system of the present invention is capable of delivering high bandwidth data to large numbers of clients.

Abstract: A priority progress media-streaming system provides quality-adaptive transmission of multimedia in a shared heterogeneous network environment, such as the Internet. The system may include a server-side streaming media pipeline that transmits a stream of media packets that encompass a multimedia (e.g., video) presentation. Ones of the media packets correspond to a segment of the multimedia presentation that is transmitted based upon packet priority labeling and is out of time sequence from other media packets corresponding to the segment. A client side streaming media pipeline receives the stream of media packets, orders them in time sequence, and renders the multimedia presentation from the ordered media packets.