Patent ID: 7558879

Claim:
A receiving apparatus for receiving data from a plurality of different communication networks as a content to be provided, comprising: multi-cast receiving means for receiving data from a multi-cast network; bi-directional receiving means for receiving data from a bi-directional network; content storing means for storing data as a content received by the receiving means; identifier identifying means for identifying an identifier of a desired content; name resolving means for interpreting the identified identifier and identifying a physical location of the content, said physical location being the multi-cast network, the bi-directional network and the content stonng means; content acquiring means for acquiring a content from the physical location identified by the name resolving means; means for causing the content acquiring means to acquire a content; and reproducing means for reproducing a content acquired by the content acquiring means, wherein said name resolving means executing a plurality of different name resolving protocols by a first resolving means, which communicates with an external name resolving system for content located on the Internet through said bi-directional network and performs name resolution, a second resolving means, which references a name resolution table for digital stream broadcast network transmitted through said multi-cast network and performs name resolution, and a third resolving means, which correlates the identifiers of the contents with the contents stored in the content storing means.