Patent ID: 7778372

Claim:
A data delivery system, comprising: a transmitter including an encoder to encode a data stream at an encoding rate, and a transmission buffer to transmit the data stream via a network; and a receiver including: a reception buffer to receive said data stream via the network; and a decoder to start decoding said data stream at a low decoding rate which is lower than a normal decoding rate after data for more than one access unit is received by the reception buffer, the decoder detecting an amount of data stored in the reception buffer, to determine whether the amount reaches a predetermined amount, and to start decoding said data stream at the normal decoding rate based on a determining result that the amount is larger than the predetermined amount, wherein said receiver decodes said data stream at a decoding frequency which is lower than an encoding frequency until an amount of data stored in the reception buffer reaches the predetermined amount after a start of reception, wherein said receiver decodes said data stream at a frequency which is approximately the same as the encoding frequency after an amount of data stored in the reception buffer has reached the predetermined amount, wherein the transmitter corrects a decoding start time of each access unit with an offset time that is gradually adjusted, the offset time being adjusted to zero when the stored data in the reception buffer is determined to reach the predetermined amount according to a predetermined transfer rate and the known low decoding rate, and wherein the normal decoding rate is a decoding rate at a steady state after the amount of data stored in the reception buffer reaches the predetermined amount.