Abstract: In network applications that are distributed across more than two hosts in the network, a scheme capable of synchronizing and grouping packets into the so called fusion sets for playback is needed. Those packets arrive from different sources at a receiver, where they are "mixed" together for playback. The receiver can be one of the hosts/sources in the application, or a master host where packets from all the hosts arrive there first and subsequently are being forwarded back to all hosts. Basically, the apparatus and method operates as follows: the receiver accepts packets from other sources, and for each packet it computes its reference time (or expected arrival time). At the receiver, time is divided into reference intervals. Packets, one packet from each source, that their corresponding reference times are within the same reference interval at the receiver, they belong to the same fusion set for synchronization.