Appeal No. 2003-2038
Application 09/288,833
Invention
The invention relates to audio and video streaming
applications employed in data packet-based networks such as, for
example, the Internet. Internet applications that employ audio
and video streaming are becoming increasingly prevalent. As a
natural consequence, there are large packet delays. Also, data
packets are sometimes even lost completely by the network.
Buffering helps to reduce the detrimental effects of the
relatively large and variable packet delays which result from
varying levels of network congestion. Packet losses in the
network are typically addressed by using a forward error
correction code across the packets. See page 1 of Appellants’
specification. Clearly then, a large receive buffer is highly
desirable to provide a better quality signal because it increases
the probability that most of the packets representing data within
a given period of time will have been successfully accumulated in
the buffer before it is necessary to decode them for playback.
However, a large buffer also results in large buffering delays.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a source coding and
receive data buffering scheme which results in more acceptable
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