A streaming media technology is a technology which uses the Hyper Text Transport Protocol (Hyper Text Transport Protocol, HTTP) to implement media data transmission. With this technology, streaming media can be downloaded while being watched.
To adapt to diversity of terminals and fluctuation of bandwidth of a network accessed by a user, when segments of streaming media are to be prepared, a plurality of bit streams with different bit rates is prepared on a server side. Further, each bit stream may be divided into a plurality of segments (segment) according to time periods, where each segment may be played independently. In this case, when a network condition of a terminal changes, the terminal may switch to continue to play a segment which matches the current network condition of the terminal better.
However, in a same time period, segments of close quality may exist in segments corresponding to different bit rates, and are called redundant segments. Existence of the redundant segments does not improve user experience, but improves a storage volume of a server.