Patent ID: 6986158

Claim:
A system for controlling distribution of video information over a network, comprising: (a) a video data distribution unit comprising: coding means for producing coded data by encoding source video signals based on performance level messages and error status messages that are received, wherein said coding means inserts an intraframe-coded frame in a sequence of interframed-coded frames at predetermined regular intervals, when the received performance level messages indicate the presence of such a recipient whose performance is insufficient to fully decode the coded data, or when the error status messages indicate the presence of such a recipient that is experiencing intolerably frequent errors, dynamic traffic control means for dynamically controlling traffic of the coded data, thereby producing a video stream for distribution, and video distribution means for distributing the produced video stream over the network; and (b) a plurality of data terminals, each comprising: performance level notification means for evaluating performance of said each data terminal and sending the performance report message to indicate the performance evaluated, error status monitoring means for monitoring error status of said each data terminal and sending the error status message to said video data distribution unit when an error is detected, and decoding means for adaptively decoding the video stream delivered thereto, wherein said adaptive decoding in a data terminal reproduces a subsampled video stream by selectively decoding a portion of the intra-coded frames out of the delivered video stream, when said performance level notification means identifies that the performance is insufficient to fully decode the delivered video stream including interframe-coded frames, or when said error status monitoring means detects intolerably frequent errors.