Method and apparatus for efficiently searching and selecting preferred content from a plurality of active multimedia streams

A method and apparatus which efficiently searches for desired content from active multimedia data streams under the constraints that the data describing the content is not available until the transmission of the described content segment commences. A receiver computer sequentially scans a list of server I/O ports where content description data is available during the multimedia content data transmission from an I/O port on the same or alternative streaming multimedia server. The content description data provides a real time, but not advanced, description of the multimedia data available in a continuous multimedia data stream. The content description data for each of the scanned multimedia streams is presented to the user for manual selection. The user may optionally enter content preferences into a receiver computer database, which the receiver computer then uses to compare and connect to content which matches the user preferences. Seek: the receiver computer switches to a multimedia stream transmitting content with a desired content parameter. Skip: the receiver computer switches away from a current multimedia data stream which is transmitting content with a parameter which the user wants to avoid, to an alternate stream transmitting more preferable content.