A video-on-demand method, client and server

摘要

Portions (A1-D1) of multimedia program (presentation) are repetitively broadcast to receiving stations (122) with subsequent portions (C1-D1) being broadcast less frequently than preceding portions (A1-C1). Blocks (a-f) of at least one of the portions (A1) are broadcast in varying permutations from one repetition to a next repetition. Further, each portion is of a length which is proportional to a sum of the lengths of all preceding portions. A receiver (122) is provided which selects blocks to be skipped (in a pyramid type broadcast) based on information indicative of the permutation selected by the server (100). The receiver (122) determines the number of blocks to skip before buffering the next block for the video being viewed.