Method and apparatus for simultaneously playing a media program and an arbitrarily chosen seek preview frame

A method of concurrently playing a media program comprising a plurality of frames and providing a thumbnail of an arbitrarily chosen preview frame of the media program in response to a seek command, comprising the steps of:

• (a) receiving a request for a media program in a media server from a user computer;
• (b) transmitting the media program from the media server to the user computer, the media program for rendering in a media program player (MPP) implemented in the user computer and indexed by a plurality of media program time codes;
• (c) receiving a seek request in the media server from a seek preview client implemented in the media program player, the seek request having at least one seek time code identifying the arbitrarily chosen seek preview media program frame of the media program;
• and
• (d) transmitting the arbitrarily chosen preview frame to the user computer for rendering by the playback component of the MPP.

An apparatus for playing a media program and providing a preview frame of the media program in response to a seek command, comprising:

• a user computer having a communications module communicatively coupled to a media program player (MPP) the communications module for:
• transmitting a request for the media program from a user computer to a media server;
• receiving the media program from the media server in the user computer, the media program having a plurality of media program frames indexed by a plurality of media program time codes;
• and the media program player (MPP) for:
• rendering the media program;
• accepting a seek command in the user computer;
• generating a seek request from the seek command, the seek request including information identifying an arbitrarily chosen seek preview media program frame associated with the media program;
• retrieving the arbitrarily chosen seek preview media program frame;
• and
• rendering the received arbitrarily chosen seek preview media program frame in the playback component of the MPP.

An apparatus for concurrently playing a media program comprising a plurality of frames and providing a thumbnail of an arbitrarily chosen preview frame of the media program in response to a seek command, comprising:

• a media server having processor communicatively coupled to a memory, the memory storing instructions comprising instructions for:
• receiving a request for a media program in a media server from a user computer;
• transmitting the media program from the media server to the user computer, the media program for rendering in a media program player (MPP) implemented in the user computer and indexed by a plurality of media program time codes;
• receiving a seek request in the media server from a seek preview client implemented in the media program player, the seek request having at least one seek time code identifying the arbitrarily chosen seek preview media program frame of the media program;
• and
• transmitting the arbitrarily chosen preview frame to the user computer for rendering by the playback component of the MPP.