ENHANCED BLOCK-REQUEST STREAMING USING SCALABLE ENCODING

A block-request streaming system provides for improvements in the user experience and bandwidth efficiency of such systems, typically using an ingestion system that generates data in a form to be served by a conventional file server (HTTP, FTP, or the like), wherein the ingestion system intakes content and prepares it as files or data elements to be served by the file server. A client device can be adapted to take advantage of the ingestion process as well as including improvements that make for a better presentation independent of the ingestion process. The files or data elements are organized as blocks that are transmitted and decoded as a unit, and the system is configured to provide and consume scalable blocks such that the quality of the presentation increases as more of the block is downloaded. Encoding and decoding blocks with multiple independent scalability layers can be done as well.