Patent ID: 8239901

Claim:
A buffer control method of controlling a buffer included in a relay apparatus that relays a video stream from a transmit terminal to a receive terminal, the method comprising: storing the video stream received from the transmit terminal in the buffer of the relay apparatus; and controlling a data amount of the video stream stored in the buffer of the relay apparatus, for each segment, wherein as the control over the data amount in the buffer of the relay apparatus that stores the video stream received by the relay apparatus; the data amount of the video stream in the buffer of the relay apparatus is controlled for the each segment, based on a combination of a result of interpretation of the each segment of the video stream received by the relay apparatus and other setting, the other setting including at least one of: a threshold set for controlling the data amount in the buffer of the relay apparatus; a predetermined timing set for controlling the data amount in the buffer of the relay apparatus; and a control instruction supplied to the relay apparatus from an external apparatus connected to the relay apparatus; the relay apparatus extracts the video stream stored in the buffer of the relay apparatus, and transmits the extracted video stream to the receive terminal; the method further comprising: where there is a packet loss or bit error, decoding a given segment of the video stream independently of another segment of the video stream; determining as a determination result whether a given frame of the video stream is a reference frame reference from another frame of the video stream, based on a frame type; and wherein controlling the data amount of the video stream stored in the buffer uses the determination result.