Method for reducing latency in an interactive information distribution system

Provider equipment for providing information streams to subscriber equipment in a content distribution network, comprising

• a session controller for maintaining a plurality of playlists created by subscribers, wherein each playlist is associated with a respective subscriber and is created and controlled by subscriber commands provided to the session controller, wherein the playlist defines content streams and a location of the content streams defined in the playlist including a location of auxiliary streams associated therewith, including reverse and fast-forward streams;
• a server, coupled to the session controller, for storing the plurality of content streams at locations identified in the playlists, and
• a server controller, coupled to the server and session controller, the server controller maintaining a copy of the playlist and retrieving from the server content streams defined by the playlist for sequentially provisioning to the subscriber equipment according to the playlist in response to receiving a play command from the subscriber requesting content streams associated with the playlist;
• wherein the session controller provides a request to the server controller identifying from the playlist a next content stream to be provided from the server to the subscriber equipment, wherein the identified next content stream is spliced at an end of a current content stream, the session controller further modifying the playlist and the copy of the playlist at the server controller in response to playlist modification commands received from the subscriber equipment.