Mulitmedia control system and method for controlling multimedia program presentation

摘要

A method for locally controlling the presentation of a multimedia program received from a remote multimedia server (30) receives the multimedia program as a custom ordered series of source program segments (A1-AN) arranged in packets at a local set-top control system (62). The control system buffers and decompresses the compressed program segments for presentation on a local display monitor (76). The control system includes a direct access storage device (68) arranged to buffer a predetermined number of the received program segments, some of which are non-sequentially ordered and others of which are sequentially ordered. The control system (62) provides sequential presentation of the received program segments. Where a program segment received is the next program segment in order, it is written to the direct access storage device (68) but it is concurrently transferred to the display (76) for presentation. By this means, the earlier program segments are sequentially presented. Thereafter, the program segments are transferred from storage to the display.