Playback devices may receive video content and an age of a playlist associated with the video content. A playback device may use the age of the playlist to schedule output of video fragments of the video content. The playback device may adjust the output of the video content until an actual output time of a video fragment is substantially the same as the scheduled output time for the video fragment.

Certain exemplary embodiments relate to entertainment systems that interact with users so as to provide for social networking and/or other services. In certain exemplary embodiments, an entertainment system is configured to provide jukebox-related and entertainment system mediated services that are accessible from within and from the outside of the location, coordinating social networking services among and between patrons within and outside of the location and also providing for advertisement opportunities. In certain exemplary embodiments, the entertainment system within a location may serve as and/or be connected to a jukebox. The entertainment system within the location may be connected to one or more client devices, one or more displays, one or more bar-top or hand-held gaming devices, etc., in certain exemplary embodiments. The jukebox-related and entertainment system mediated services may provide mechanisms for enhancing patrons' experiences, creating a sense of ownership and/or belongingness to a connected community of entertainment system users.

An electronic device includes a first interface configured to obtain a first media data of a first source device; a second interface configured to obtain a second media data of a second source device; a processing device configured to generate a third media data; and an output device configured to output media data. The media data may be the first media data, the second media data, or the third media data. The third media data affects the first media data or the second media data if the third media data and the first media data are simultaneously outputted, or the third media data and the second media data are simultaneously outputted. The processing device is configured to process the first media data and the second media data to obtain a processing result, the processing result being used to generate presentation data indicating correspondences between interfaces and the media data.

A cooperative communication method includes determining bandwidth of a first wireless network that user equipment (UE) currently accesses, determining bandwidth required by data to be sent to the UE, and when the bandwidth of the first wireless network cannot meet the bandwidth required by the to-be-sent data, sending a first part of data packets to the first wireless network, and sending a second part of the data packets to at least one core network, so that the at least one core network sends the second part of the data packets to the UE using at least one wireless network, where a communications protocol of the first wireless network is different from that of the at least one wireless network. Bandwidth resources can be integrated on wireless networks with different communications protocols, so that fluent transmission of data can be implemented.

Example techniques relate to playback queue subscriptions. An example implementation involves a computing system receiving, from a first computing device associated with a first user account, an instruction to enable subscription to a first playback queue associated with a first media playback system. In response to the instruction, the computing system enables second user accounts to subscribe to the first playback queue. The second user accounts are registered with respective second media playback systems in respective second household. The computing system receives, from a particular second media playback system, a request to subscribe to the first playback queue; and in response, sends one or more messages that update a control interface of the first control device to display a subscriber indication and (ii) sends one or more messages that populate a second playback queue of the particular second media playback system with audio tracks of the first playback queue.

Data reception via an appropriate route is realized on an information processing apparatus that can receive data from a communication apparatus via one of a plurality of different routes, and in a control method therefor. If a first device has been discovered on a first network, data is received from the first device on the first network. If the data received from the first device on the first network is to be transferred from a second device existing on a second network, the data is uploaded onto the second device. At this time, whether or not data received by the first reception unit is to be transferred from the second device is determined in accordance with a setting at the time of the discovery of the first device.

A content distribution network includes a first server in communication with an anycast server that provides content via a unicast signal, and with a multicast server that provides the content via a multicast signal. The first server is configured to receive a list of source addresses associated with the content, and to provide a metadata file including an anycast Internet protocol address of the anycast server from the list of source addresses as an Internet protocol address of the content in response to a first request for the content. When the number of client devices requesting the content exceeds a first threshold, the first server receives an updated list of sources including a multicast Internet protocol address of a multicast server, and provides the multicast Internet protocol address of the multicast server as the Internet protocol address of the content in the metadata file.

A system and method for bandwidth management by controlling the bit rate of a signal stream in real time according to available link bandwidth. Applications include multiple-channel video data streams over a limited-bandwidth link such as a Digital Subscriber Line. A video signal is transrated at the head end to multiple streams having different bit rates, by a multirating device which sends the multiple streams over a network, along with metadata containing information about the data structure and parameters of the streams. At the network access edge, a demultirating device uses the metadata to select the stream with the highest video quality whose bit rate does not exceed the available bandwidth of the end-user's access link. This scheme provides multiple unicast signals to different end-users in place of a single multicast signal, supports multiple high-definition channels over a limited bandwidth link, and is compatible with standard encryption methods.

A broadcast reception device receives a digital broadcast service capable of executing an application cooperating with a broadcast program, and is provided with: a broadcast reception unit which receives broadcast waves of the digital broadcast service; a separation unit which separates video information relating to the broadcast program and application-related information from the received broadcast waves; a broadcast video decoding unit which decodes the video information relating to the broadcast program; an application acquisition unit which acquires an application on the basis of location information included in the application-related information; an application execution unit which executes the acquired application and acquires additional data from a server device; a video conversion unit which converts broadcast program video decoded by the broadcast decoding unit into high-quality video having a higher quality than the video using the acquired additional data; and a display unit which is able to display the high-quality video.

A system for recovering channel bonded program streams may include filters and a collator. The filters may be configured to receive data streams that include multiple chunks of transport stream packets, and marker information items that are indicative of boundaries of the chunks, over multiple bonded channels, and to individually filter the data streams based at least on a utilized program identifier. The collator may be configured to collate the filtered data streams based at least on the marker information items to recover a program stream corresponding to the utilized program identifier. In one or more implementations, the filters may replace, or augment, the marker information items with marker packets that include a program identifier that is not being used for transmitted programs and/or that is reserved for marker packets. The collator may collate the filtered data streams based at least on the marker packets.