| 主权项 |
1. A method for providing on demand streaming media to a user device, the method comprises:
receiving, at a streaming device, a request to stream a certain media stream to a user device; wherein the streaming device is coupled to multiple user devices over a network and is adapted to concurrently transmit multiple media streams to the multiple user devices; establishing, by the streaming device, a peer to peer session with each distribution device out of multiple distribution devices that holds media stream fragments that belong to the certain media stream; wherein the streaming device and the multiple distribution devices form a high bandwidth media distribution peer to peer network, and the distribution devices do not directly interact with the user devices and each individually stores less than three minutes of media stream fragments per media stream, and the streaming device does not include any complete content for distribution; generating by a distribution device a low priority local transfer request; wherein the low priority local transfer request requests to obtain media stream fragments that differ from media stream fragments requested by the streaming device from the distribution device but belong to a same media stream as media stream fragments requested by the streaming device; choking or fulfilling, by another distribution device of the multiple distribution devices, the low priority local transfer request; obtaining the media stream fragments by the streaming device and from multiple distribution devices; wherein the streaming device is prevented from uploading media stream fragments to any distribution device; and streaming to the user device the certain media stream. |
