Patent ID: 8635364

Claim:
An apparatus control system, comprising: a plurality of devices located on a network, each of said devices comprising a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server function; and a controller which includes a browser function that transmits a remote manipulation instruction to said plurality of devices through said network, wherein a device of said plurality of devices comprises a remote manipulation instruction processing unit that executes a corresponding operation in accordance with the remote manipulation instruction from said controller and that redirects the remote manipulation instruction from said controller to an other device in said plurality of devices on said network, wherein said other device executes a corresponding operation in accordance with the remote manipulation instruction from said remote manipulation instruction processing unit, wherein, with respect to said controller, said device and said other device are connected to said network in parallel, wherein said device and said other device perform a same operation, wherein said controller transmits, as the remote manipulation instruction, an instruction for switching from one channel to another channel through a channel-up or a channel-down operation, wherein said device receives the channel-up or the channel-down operation from a browser and executes the channel-up or the channel-down operation in accordance with the remote manipulation instruction received from said controller, wherein said other device executes another corresponding channel-up or channel-down operation in accordance with the remote manipulation instruction that is redirected from said device, and wherein said controller transmits to said device a packet which contains a remote manipulation instruction storage section that stores the remote manipulation instruction, and a redirection list storage section that stores a redirection list and comprises a number of IP addresses and a list of the IP addresses.