Patent ID: 7050870

Claim:
A reproduction apparatus, comprising: a read section for reading a first data unit from a recording medium having the first data unit recorded thereon; a communication section for receiving a second data unit in accordance with a communication condition with a server; a synthesis section for, when the communication section cannot receive the second data unit in accordance with the communication condition, outputting the first data unit as a first output data unit, and when the communication section can receive the second data unit in accordance with the communication condition, synthesizing the first data unit and the second data unit so as to generate a synthesis data unit and outputting the synthesis data unit as a second output data unit; and a reproduction section for reproducing the first output data unit and the second output data unit, wherein the first data unit and the second data unit are constructed so that a sound quality of reproduction of the second output data unit is higher than a sound quality of reproduction of the first output data unit; and the first data unit and the second data unit originates from hierarchy-encoded data unit.