Some embodiments provide methods, systems and apparatuses for use in managing playback of content. Some of these methods comprise: maintaining, at a playback device, a first media stream in a stand-by mode; continuing to acquire, from over a distributed network while in the stand-by mode, one or more index files of the first media stream, where the one or more index files identify a plurality of media files of the first media stream configured to be played back at the playback device, while not acquiring the media files of the first media stream while the first media stream is in the stand-by mode; and tracking the one or more index files relative to a playback timing of the first media stream while in the stand-by mode, where the playback timing continues to increment while the first media stream is in the stand-by mode.