Patent ID: 6976082

Claim:
A method of delivering a multi-media message to a recipient device, the multi-media message being created by a sender and including a talking entity delivering a sender message, the method comprising: determining whether a recipient device has rendering software for delivering a video portion of the multi-media message; if the recipient device does not have rendering software, streaming the multimedia message from a server such that a generic rendering software device will deliver the multi-media message; determining whether the recipient device has speech synthesis software associated with a voice requested by the sender; if the recipient device does not have the speech synthesis software, synthesizing audio at the server and streaming the audio to the recipient jointly with the available rendering software; if the recipient device does have the speech synthesis software and the requested voice is available, synthesizing the voice at the recipient device and delivering the voice jointly with the available rendering software; and if the recipient device does have the speech synthesis software but the requested voice is not available, downloading the voice to the recipient device and synthesizing the voice at the recipient device.