Patent ID: 7573877

Claim:
A terminal apparatus connected to a data transmitting apparatus for transmitting data via a network, the terminal apparatus comprising: packet transmitting means for transmitting a data requesting packet requesting transmission of desired data and including information indicating a capability of the terminal apparatus; data receiving means for receiving the desired data that is transmitted from the data transmitting apparatus in response to reception of the data requesting packet; decoding processing means for decoding the data received by the data receiving means; and output means for outputting the data decoded by the decoding processing means, wherein: the information indicating the capability of the terminal apparatus includes layered information, a bit rate, a frame rate, a coding/decoding method, processing capability information, color depth information, and a type of allowed traffic for the desired data, the type of allowed traffic indicating an amount of acceptable delay in receiving the data, and the data is received in a format that is determined based on the capability information and a congestion of the network, wherein when the network congestion exceeds an amount that allows transmission of data according to the capability information, the format of the data is changed to allow the transmission of the data according to the network congestion.