US Patent 10116989 Buffer reduction using frame dropping

The techniques described herein may, for example, allow a quantity of buffered video frames to be reduced, for example for use in adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming and other streaming transmissions. The quantity of buffered video frames may be reduced by dropping certain selected buffered frames from a resulting video output that is displayed to the viewer. This may reduce end-to-end latency without requiring a change in frame rate or fast forwarding of the video output, which may sometimes not be available or permitted by a resulting video player. These buffer reduction techniques may sometimes be employed upon a determination that transmission conditions have stabilized and that holding large quantities of buffered video may be unnecessary. In some examples, the disclosed techniques may be particularly advantageous for live streaming scenarios, in which end-to-end latency may be particularly problematic for the viewer.