Patent ID: 7391773

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a compression unit that compresses digital data on a predetermined length basis; a first packetizing unit that adds header information to every m (m being an integer) digital data compressed by the compression unit to packetize on a unit basis of first data length, the digital data to which the header information is added thereby generating a first data train; a second packetizing unit that packetizes the first data train generated by the first packetizing unit as a payload portion on a fixed second data length basis, thereby generating a second data train; and a control unit that determines the value of m on the basis of the predetermined length of the digital data, length of the payload portion and length of the header information, wherein the control unit determines the value of m so that a value calculated by subtracting a sum of m times the predetermined length of the digital data and the length of the header information from n (n being an integer) times the length of the payload portion becomes equal to zero or approaches most closely to zero.