CHUNK HEADER INCORPORATING BINARY FLAGS AND CORRELATED VARIABLE­ LENGTH FIELDS

A method of playing back content by a playback device is provided. The playback device downloads a portion of a media file, which has content data including frames of encoded video and a plurality of headers. At least one of the headers contains a series of flags and a plurality of data fields; the series of flags comprises a configuration sub-flag representing a configuration for a decoding operation, an extension sub-flag that indicates that additional bytes of flags are included in the header, and additional flags that are indicated by the extension flag. The use of flags and corresponding data create an optional-inclusion approach that keeps the overhead of additional features small and allows for the inclusion of additional features when necessary. Frames of encoded video are decoded by decoding the header to identify the series of flags, the additional flags, the configuration sub-flag, and the content of the plurality of data fields, and are displayed on a display of the playback device.