摘要 |
Disclosed are methods for associating size information with each chunk of a media presentation. This size information is sent to an end-user device. There are many ways to characterize the size of a chunk beyond simply giving the number of bytes in the chunk. Some embodiments send an approximation of the size or a relative size. In some embodiments, a server publishes a“reference”value for a media presentation and then, for each chunk, gives the size relative to that reference value. The device decides whether or not to download the chunk. The device might decide that it is unlikely that the next chunk can be downloaded in time. Then, to avoid the possibility of a video freeze, the device could request the next chunk at a lower resolution. In some situations, the device decides to request a completely different chunk or to not request any chunk at all.
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