Wireless video transmission system

1. A method for transmitting data from a transmitter that transmits data received from an input to said transmitter, said method comprising:

(a) defining a first average rate to transmit a first plurality of packets of said data for presentation to a user at a receiver;

(b) defining a second average rate to transmit a second plurality of packets of said data comprising a subset of said first plurality of packets, wherein said second plurality of packets is less than said first plurality of packets, wherein said second average rate is greater than said first average rate;

(c) said transmitter, at an automatically-selected time, automatically and without regard to any change in the rate of data received through said input, increasing the rate of transmission to said receiver of said second plurality of packets over a wireless interconnection to said second average rate; and

(d) estimating the bandwidth of said wireless interconnection based on respective arrival times, at said receiver, of only those ones of said first plurality of packets for presentation to said user at said receiver that are included in said second plurality of packets.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said second plurality of packets are provided to said transmitter at the maximum rate.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said second plurality of packets are provided as a burst of packets with at least two packets transmitted in a back-to-back fashion without other packets between them.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein all packets of said second plurality of packets contain at least one of audio data and video data.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said second plurality of packets is transmitted in a duration less than 1 second.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said transmitting is by an APPLICATION LAYER.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said transmitting is by a transport layer.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein said transmitting is by a network layer.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein steps (b) and (c) are performed a plurality of times over a time period.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said first average rate is equal to the bit rate of the data source.

11. A method of transmitting a contiguous sequence of data, said method comprising:

(a) defining a transmission burst rate to transmit a plurality of packets of said contiguous sequence wherein said transmission burst rate is greater than the average rate for transmitting said data to a receiver;

(b) transmitting said plurality of packets of said data over a wireless interconnection to a receiver, at an automatically-selected time and at a rate automatically increased to said transmission burst rate without regard to any change in the rate of data received for transmission, wherein all packets contain at least one of audio data and video data; and

(c) estimating the bandwidth of said wireless interconnection based on respective arrival times, at said receiver, of only those packets of said contiguous sequence of data included in said plurality of packets.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said plurality of packets are provided to said transmitter at the maximum rate.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein said plurality of packets are provided as a burst of packets with at least two packets transmitted in a back-to-back fashion without other packets between them.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein said plurality of packets is transmitted in a duration less than 1 second.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein said transmitting is by an APPLICATION LAYER.

16. The method claim 11 wherein said transmitting is by a TRANSPORT LAYER.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein said transmitting is by a NETWORK LAYER.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein said average rate is equal to the bit rate of the source data.

19. The method of claim 11 further comprising performing said transmitting and said estimating a plurality of times over a time period.