An example device for advertising a segment availability time when transporting media data includes a middleware unit configured to determine a playback duration, X, for segments of media data, determine a current time at a first scheduled burst, aburst, of a multicast channel (MCH) scheduling period (MSP) for a first segment having segment number a, determine an MSP duration, DMSP, calculate a segment availability time for a second segment having segment number b according to a formula that uses X, aburst, a, b, and DMSP as inputs, and advertise the segment availability time for the second segment.