Abstract: Improved responsiveness and reduced latency of media playback on a media player is achieved by dynamic adjustment of storage parameters for the jitter buffer in the media player. Decreasing the size of the jitter buffer to a smaller constant value may provide acceptable, starvation-free playback in many cases. Playback of more demanding files requiring more buffered data for decode are addressed by dynamic adjustment of the jitter buffer parameters. An algorithmic or heuristic process is used to dynamically set the size of the jitter buffer before and during media playback. The jitter buffer size and/or preroll duration may be adjusted based upon the quality of playback experience. If playback starves, the jitter buffer size, starvation threshold, and/or preroll duration is increased before rebuffering and resuming playback.

Abstract: A host computer manages and processes multiple requests for transmission of media content to other devices within a network. Hardware or software-driven media processing units format media content for streaming to the network devices. A policy engine manages processing constraints of the media processing units to determine the best combination of transrate/transcode processes to provide the highest quality transmissions without overloading the processing capacity of the host computer. The policy engine also considers available network bandwidth when determining transformation instructions for the media processing units. The policy engine identifies target formats, bit rates, and image resolutions for output for each media stream or for storage for later transmission and instructs the media processing units to transrate and/or transcode the media content appropriately to meet the demand.

Abstract: Improved responsiveness and reduced latency of media playback on a media player is achieved by dynamic adjustment of storage parameters for the jitter buffer in the media player. Decreasing the size of the jitter buffer to a smaller constant value may provide acceptable, starvation-free playback in many cases. Playback of more demanding files requiring more buffered data for decode are addressed by dynamic adjustment of the jitter buffer parameters. An algorithmic or heuristic process is used to dynamically set the size of the jitter buffer before and during media playback. The jitter buffer size and/or preroll duration may be adjusted based upon the quality of playback experience. If playback starves, the jitter buffer size, starvation threshold, and/or preroll duration is increased before rebuffering and resuming playback.