Low latency streaming media

A machine implemented method performed by a data processing system, the method comprising:

• monitoring a bandwidth of a connection used for receiving a first rendition of a streaming media provided through an HTTP compliant protocol;
• determining whether to switch to a second rendition of the streaming media based on the monitored bandwidth;
• receiving a set of one or more rendition reports about one or more corresponding renditions, wherein each rendition report in the set of one or more rendition reports provides data about a recent updated playlist for a corresponding rendition to facilitate a quick tune-in to a near live point in the corresponding rendition, and the set of one or more rendition reports comprising one or more of (1) a rendition report for a lower bit rate rendition that has a lower bit rate than the first rendition (2) a rendition report for a higher bit rate rendition that has a higher bit rate than the first rendition or a combination thereof;
• and
• requesting a first playlist for the second rendition in response to determining to switch to the second rendition, and wherein the recent updated playlist comprises a plurality of uniform resource identifiers (URIs) for the second rendition and wherein a last URI in the plurality of URIs is a near live point relative to a live event that the data processing system can skip to facilitate the quick tune-in to the second rendition, and wherein a skip to the last URI avoids downloading media segments before the last URI and wherein requests for updated playlists and requests for media segments identified by URIs in updated playlists are transmitted from the data processing system through a connection, and wherein a request for an updated playlist also accompanies a request for a first media segment in the updated playlist.

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing executable program instructions which when executed by a data processing system cause the data processing system to perform a method, the method comprising:

• transmitting, to a plurality of client devices, a plurality of updated playlists for a plurality of renditions of a streaming media content provided through an HTTP compliant protocol;
• transmitting, to the plurality of client devices, a set of one or more rendition reports about one or more corresponding renditions of the streaming media content, wherein each rendition report in the set of one or more rendition reports provides data about a recent updated playlist for a corresponding rendition to facilitate a quick turn-in to a near live point in the corresponding rendition;
• receiving a request for the recent updated playlist, wherein the request for the recent updated playlist accompanies a request for a first media segment in the recent updated playlist;
• transmitting the recent updated playlist in response to the request for the recent updated playlist and transmitting the first media segment in response to the request for the first media segment.