METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING BACKWARD SEEK PERFORMANCE FOR MULTIMEDIA FILES

A multimedia player application is adapted to process multimedia data of one or more multimedia files (e.g. MPEG-4 files) to produce multimedia output data at an audio/video output device. A file allocation table (FAT) system is adapted to manage storage of these multimedia files. An interface process is adapted to maintain a current address pointer for a current position in a multimedia file being played, a backward seek address pointer for a preceding position in the multimedia file between the current position and the beginning of the multimedia file, and an index table address pointer for an index table of the multimedia file. The current and backward seek address pointers are regularly updated while the multimedia file is being played, and the backward seek address pointer is updated as a function of the current address pointer. Advantageously, backward seek times for backward seeks in the multimedia file are reduced.