Patent ID: 8355504

Claim:
An AV communication control circuit, comprising: a copyright protection processing unit configured to carry out a copyright protection processing for encrypting AV data entered from an AV stream signal line; an interface selection unit configured to make a selection of AV data to be transmitted to a network; a selection unit configured to select either one of AV data entered from an AV stream signal line through the copyright protection processing unit and AV data entered from a general purpose bus, based on the selection by the interface selection unit; a transmission control unit configured to carry out control for transmitting AV data selected by the selection unit to the network; a first external connection terminal to receive AV data from the AV stream signal line and to supply received AV data to the copyright protection processing unit, a second external connection terminal to receive AV data from the general purpose bus and to supply received AV data to the selection unit; wherein the copyright protection processing unit carries out the copyright protection processing with respect to AV data which is supplied by the first external connection terminal, for which the copyright protection processing has not been carried out before entering the AV communication control circuit, and the selection unit selects either one of (1) AV data which is entered from the AV stream signal line via the first external connection terminal and the copyright protection unit, for which the copyright protection processing is carried out by the copyright protection unit, and (2) AV data which is entered from the general purpose bus via the second external connection terminal, for which the copyright protection processing has been carried out before entering the AV communication control circuit.