Supporting transport diversity and time-shifted buffers for media streaming over a network

摘要

A proxy unit is configured to obtain mapping information that maps an identifier for media data to a resource location based on a service for retrieving the media data, wherein the service defines at least one of a plurality of types of transports for transporting the media data, receive a request for the media data from an application service client, determine whether the service is available, and, when the service is available, cause the application service client to receive the media data from a unit that receives the media data using the service from the resource location, based on the mapping information. In this manner, the application service client may receive media data from the unit (e.g., a middleware unit), which then receives the media data using a service that defines transport according to, e.g., broadcast or multicast transport, or another fashion (e.g., unicast) if the defined transport is unavailable.