1. A method of retrieving multimedia data, the method comprising: analyzing, by a client device, at least a first portion of a manifest file for multimedia content, wherein the first portion of the manifest file includes information indicative of sets of representations of the multimedia content, information indicative of common characteristics for each of the sets of representations, and information indicative of a location of a second portion of the manifest file, wherein analyzing the at least first portion comprises determining the location of the second portion of the manifest file, wherein the manifest file is separate from the representations, and wherein the representations included in each of the sets of representations comprise switchable representations that are alternatives to each other and that each represent the same multimedia content; selecting, by the client device, one of the sets of representations based on the common characteristics for the one of the sets of representations such that the common characteristics correspond to configuration data of the client device; selecting, by the client device, one of the representations of the selected one of the sets of representations based on one or more coding characteristics of the one of the representations of the one of the sets; generating, by the client device, a request for a first set of multimedia data of the one of the representations based on the selection; retrieving, by the client device, at least the second portion of the manifest file from the location determined from the first portion of the manifest file; analyzing, by the client device, the at least second portion of the manifest file to determine a location of a second set of multimedia data; and retrieving, by the client device, at least a portion of the second set of multimedia data from the location determined from the second portion of the manifest file.