Patent ID: 7529298

Claim:
A picture transmission method for encoding moving picture data and transmitting the encoded data, the method comprising the steps of: encoding firstly said moving picture data into a moving picture stream for transmission at a predetermined data transfer rate; and encoding secondly, based on selected position information transmitted from each of a plurality of user devices, a part of said moving picture data of a higher resolution than said first encoding step; and transmitting said moving picture data of said first encoding step commonly to said plurality of devices while transmitting said moving picture data corresponding to the respective selected position information of said second encoding step, to each of said plurality of devices, wherein selected position information from a first of the plurality of user devices is different from selected position information from a second of the plurality of user devices, and wherein the second encoding step includes encoding the established partial picture regions for transmission at the higher resolution for a predetermined period of time, after which, encoding of the established partial picture regions at the higher resolution is halted after the selected position information has moved out of the partial picture region.