Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America

Daiji Ido

Akihiro Miyazaki

Koji Imura

Koichi Hata

Junichi Sato

Takao Yamaguchi

Ichiro Takei

Carsten Burmeister

Tomoaki Itoh

Jose Luis Rey

Yoshinori Matsui

Masataka Sugiura

Yoshifumi Yonemoto

The present invention is intended to realize a screen configuration according to a propagation environment and display capability by causing a server to transmit a plurality of pieces of screen configuration information describing a spatial arrangement of contents to a reception terminal and select, when the reception terminal receives a plurality of pieces of screen configuration information, screen configuration information and display the contents according to the propagation environment of the reception terminal and conditions such as display capability.

Transmitter apparatus and transmitting method

A packet compressoroperates under a reliable mode or an optimistic mode. A mode determination unitcounts the number of ACK packets or NACK packets received by a unit time X by an ACK/NACK packet receiver. When the counted number of NACK packets is larger than a predetermined value Y, the mode determination unitswitches the operation mode of the packet compressorto the reliable mode. When the counted number of ACK packets is larger than a predetermined value Z, the mode determination unitswitches the operation mode of the packet compressorto the optimistic mode.

Method and apparatus for header compression

In a header decompression apparatus, a header decompressorrefers to reference information stored in a reference information managerto decompress a compressed header of a packet received by a packet receiver. An error detectordetects a CRC error in the packet with its header decompressed by the packet receiver, and outputs only a correct packet. A successive error countercounts the number of successive errors detected by the error detector. A successive decompression success countercounts the number of decompression successes that successively appear. By referring to these counted numbers, an update request unittransmits an update request to a transmitting side as required. The reference information managermanages the reference information for header decompression. With this structure, the header decompression apparatus can request update of the reference information based on the state of the error.

Apparatus and method for header decompression

According to the media serverand the network control apparatus, upon distributing a plurality of media data to the media receiving apparatuseshaving different transmission rates by broadcasting or multicasting, the distribution precedence is attached by associating the program control information and the media data. The distribution precedence attached to the program control information is set same as or lower than the distribution precedence of all media data included in the program concerned. Then, depending on the distribution precedence, the transmission possible media data and the program only are selectively distributed. The program control information relating to the program that includes the receivable media data by the media receiving terminal apparatusonly is selected and received. This way, the receivable media data is distributed depending on the transmission environment of the media receiving apparatus. It is possible to prevent the media receiving apparatus selecting the invalid program.

Medium distribution device, medium reception device, medium distribution method, and medium reception method

A distance between positional information added to contents and a current position detected in an information receiving terminal is calculated, and based on the calculated distance, a method for outputting the contents is controlled. Thus, since the method for outputting the contents can be changed by a positional relationship between the contents and the information receiving terminal, distance relationship between the current position and the contents can be clearly displayed so that users can easily select the contents.

Information receiving terminal and information distributing system

A data reception apparatus has a data reception section that receives data sent from a server through a communication link. A storage section stores the received data, and a play back section plays back the stored data. A requesting section requests the server to send data, corresponding to a certain period, at a rate equal to or more than a normal rate and lower than a rate set up by the communication link.

Data reception apparatus and data distribution system

Information relating to a playback of divided static media data included in static media transmission data is stored in static media transmission data previous than the static media transmission data, and transmitted, thereby making it possible to determine whether there is no divided static media data originally or lost when the divided static media data is not received. Accordingly, in the case where static media such as timed text and the like is used in distribution of streaming type, when receiving no static media data, a data receiving apparatus determines whether there is no media data to be next displayed or media data is lost in the course of transmission to notify a user of loss of media data correctly. Moreover, it is possible to reduce time required for packet loss detection to execute a retransmission request without increasing pre-buffering.

Transmission data structure, and method and device for transmitting the same

A media receiving apparatus capable of preventing media from being positioned in an invalid display area or a program from being temporarily stopped, even if the vertical/horizontal ratio of the resolution of the display section is switched while a broadcast or streaming program is being displayed. In this apparatus there are a plurality of display sections Dand Dwith different resolutions, and a display directive section () directs a display section to be set as active in accordance with the mode of use of the user. A layout information selection section () selects a layout corresponding to the resolution of the display section indicated by the display directive section () from layout information that includes layouts corresponding to display sections Dand Ddistributed from a media distribution apparatus, and in accordance with the selected layout a media display control section () selects media distributed from the media distribution apparatus, performs conversion processing comprising enlargement or reduction, and displays media on the display section designated by the display directive section ().

Display apparatus and media display method

The present invention allows the transmitting side to transmit a plurality of pieces of layout information that determines a display layout of at least one media and media data making up this layout information and allows the receiving side to receive the layout information and media making up this layout information transmitted from the transmitting side, select one out of a plurality of different pieces of layout information based on a reception state of this media and represent the media using the selected layout information.

Reception apparatus and information browsing method

The radio control sectionnotifies a transmission rate that can be currently set up out of the radio channel transmission rates to the transmission rate decision section. The buffer monitoring sectionmonitors an amount of media data stored in the media reception bufferand when the amount of media data stored exceeds a threshold, the buffer monitoring sectionnotifies it to the transmission rate decision section. When information on the radio channel transmission rate from the radio control sectionshows that the radio channel transmission rate is well within the capacity and when monitoring information from the buffer monitoring sectionshows that the amount of data stored in the media reception bufferdoes not exceed a threshold, the transmission rate decision sectionoutputs a request for increasing the transmission rate of the media data to the control signal transmission/reception section. Thus, even if the maximum rate of the radio channel transmission rate that can be set up decreases due to deterioration of a communication environment, it is possible to prevent data play back from being interrupted.

Data reception device and data distribution system

Without RTP receiverreceiving a BYE packet, end time determinertakes into consideration packet loss information from packet loss monitorand the situation regarding RTP packet reception from RTP receiverand determines media transmission from the server is completed, and instructs control command transmitter-receiverto stop the media, provided that the situation where there has been no packet loss and no RTP packet has been received. Moreover, where RTP receiverdoes not receive data, the end of media is not determined if a packet loss has occurred in a lower layer.

Packet reception apparatus and packet reception method

A packet transmission apparatus and method may divide data into a plurality of packets and transmit the packets. At a transmitting end, a context identifying number, identifying a data stream, is selected based on a relationship between a sequence number of a packet that is to be transmitted and a sequence number in an immediately preceding packet. A sequence number denoting an order of a packet divided on a per context basis is compressed, and transmission data assigned to the context identifying number with the compressed sequence number is transmitted on a per packet basis. At the receiving end, the compressed sequence number is decompressed on a per context basis. The context is separated based on the context identifying number, and data is combined by reassembling a packet into the order of a decompressed sequence number.

Packet transmitting/receiving apparatus and packet transmission method

A packet receiving method may include receiving a packet having either a compressed header or a noncompressed header. A packet received with a compressed header is decompressed to regenerate a non-compressed header for the packet. Error detection is performed to detect the presence of an error in a packet: (1) received with a noncompressed header, (2) having a regenerated non-compressed header, or (3) having a replacement non-compressed header. Part of the non-compressed header, in a packet having a regenerated non-compressed header, is replaced with previously stored non-compressed header information, which is known to be correct, when an error is detected in the packet so as to produce a replacement non-compressed header. A packet is output as a correctly received packet when no error is detected in the packet.

Packet receiving apparatus and packet transmission method

Received packets are preserved in a receiving buffer; a playback decision sectiondecides whether the preserved packets are in time for the playback time or not; the playback orders and the preservation addresses of the preserved packets which have been decided to be in time are memorized in a pointerfor playback; the preserved packets are read and played back according to the pointerfor playback. And, the playback orders and the preservation addresses of the preserved packets are memorized in a pointerfor preservation; and a media conversion sectionreads the preserved packets according to the pointerfor preservation, and memorizes them after conversion into packets with a form by which the packets may be memorized in a preservation memory

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Daiji Ido