A method at an electronic device with a display includes: displaying a user interface having a first region and a second region; receiving, and displaying in the first region of the user interface, a live video stream of a physical environment captured by a remote video camera; displaying, in the second region, a timeline corresponding to a timespan for a first portion of a duration during which the live video stream may have been recorded; in response to receiving a user interaction to move the timespan to a second portion of the duration, transitioning the displayed timeline to a new timeline that corresponds to the timespan for the second portion, and while transitioning, displaying, in the first region, a subset of video frames representing the first and/or second portion of the duration.

A system and method of split rendering for lightfield or immersive media by using an edge-cloud and peer-to-peer based architecture. The system and method include the use of a combination of cloud-based devices and edge-devices to provide distributed processing in connection with the streaming of media, and in particular lightfield or immersive media, to an end user device. The system and method further include the use of multiple cloud and edge devices to provide parallel streaming of a given media package to an end user 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 are provided of minimizing network bandwidth used from an external network by client peers in a local network. The method can include the operation of organizing a plurality of clients each having media streamlets and a client parent in a structure within the local network. Mapping information propagates through the structure. The mapping information represents local streamlet locations as stored by the plurality of clients. Another operation is retrieving a local streamlet from a client identified in the mapping information as having the local streamlet for the requesting client.

The present invention relates to a method for playing on a player of a client device a content streamed in a network, including: (a) receiving from the player a request for a current segment at a first quality level; (b) determining, using a closed loop controller minimizing a difference between a first quality level and a setpoint second quality level, an optimal response delay for providing the requested current segment; and (c) providing the requested current segment from a first buffer at the expiration of said estimated optimal response delay.

A peer-to-peer content distribution network system based on distributed election includes a p2pcdn server cluster and a p2p client network. The p2pcdn server cluster includes any number of server nodes. The p2p client network includes any number of p2p client endpoints that need to use the peer-to-peer content distribution network. Each p2p client endpoint can establish a connection with the p2p server cluster on demand. The peer-to-peer content distribution network can make full use of the uploading capability of each user terminal equipment including mobile phones, tablets and PCs, so that each terminal equipment can communicate with each other, achieve real-time mutual sharing of resources and data, and form a new generation of p2p CDN network that “the more people who download, the faster the speed”.

Methods and systems that facilitate the downloading of media items to a first network device from a second network device are disclosed. A plurality of media items are identified Media item metadata associated with the plurality of media items is obtained from the second network device and stored on the first network device. Media item content data associate with a first subset of the plurality of media items is obtained from the second network device and stored on the first network device. In this manner, only media item metadata associate with a second subset of the plurality of media items is stored on the first network device.

The present invention relates to a method for playing on a player of a client device a content streamed in a network, including: (a) receiving from the player a request for a current segment at a first quality level; (b) determining, using a closed loop controller minimizing a difference between a first quality level and a setpoint second quality level, an optimal response delay for providing the requested current segment; and (c) providing the requested current segment from a first buffer at the expiration of said estimated optimal response delay.

The present invention relates to a method for playing on a player of a client device (11) a content streamed in a network (1), said content consisting of a sequence of segments available in a plurality of quality levels, the player being configured to request segments at a selectable quality level; the method being characterized in that it comprises performing by a processing unit (110) of the client device (11): (a) obtaining from the network (1) a model approximating an Adaptive BitRate, ABR, logic for choosing said quality level of the segments as a function of at least one parameter representative of a segment reception rate; (b) determining, according to said obtained model, a first quality level at which the player would have requested a current segment if the player was applying said ABR logic; (c) configuring the player to select said first quality level as quality level for requesting segments.

A media sharing and communication system, including a recording mechanism that records a desired portion of media upon activation by a first individual user, a first user transmitter/receiver that transmits the portion of media and a message generated by the first individual user regarding the portion of media to a second individual user and is capable of transmitting a message to a second individual user, a confirmation mechanism that confirms that the second individual user is authorized to view the portion of media, a notification mechanism that notifies the first individual user if the second individual user is not authorized to receive the portion of media, a second user transmitter/receiver that receives the portion of media and voice message upon authorization of the second individual user, a search mechanism, and a video recording mechanism, an online betting module, and an online food ordering module.