A system for servicing streaming media requests. The system includes stream director nodes and intelligent stream engine nodes, such as permanent storage devices with network interfaces. The stream director node receives a streaming media request and enqueues the request until all resources on a path from the stream engine node having the media object being requested to the user/client system have been reserved. Once reserved, the enqueued request is then serviced by requesting the stream object from the stream engine node, which then transfers the requested stream object between the stream engine node and the user/client system over the prepared path without involving the stream director node. Upon completion, the prepared path is torn down. In one embodiment the prepared path is a Label Switched Path. A provision is made for balancing the load among the stream engine nodes by duplicating stream objects on other stream engine nodes.