Patent ID: 7020081

Claim:
A stream distribution system comprising a stream distribution server, a plurality of terminal devices each having an information reproduction function, and a local area network connecting the stream distribution server and the terminal devices, wherein the stream distribution server comprises: at least two receptors each for receiving stream data transmitted through a broadcasting network and stream data transmitted through a communication network, the stream data comprising information arranged in packets, and a packet identifier being added to each packet; a selector for selecting a predetermined unit of information from the stream data received by the receptors according to a distribution request received from each of the terminal devices, for mixing the information received from the broadcasting network and the communication network, and for branching the information to a transmitter and a file I/O controller; the transmitter comprising a filter for adjusting a transmission band of the information to be sent to each of the terminal devices so as to selectively transmit the information received from the selector to each of the terminal devices according to data transmission band availability within the local area network; and the file I/O controller for controlling a file device and for outputting the information received from the selector to the file device; wherein the filter comprises a priority table correlating each of the packet identifiers with a packet priority, the filter refers to the priority table to determine the packet priority of each of the packets, and limits a transmission band of the information to be sent to each of the terminal devices or deletes the information to be sent according to the distribution request, by performing packet filtering based on the packet priority, and when a transmission band allocated to one of the terminal devices requesting the information is limited, the selector outputs the same information to both the transmitter and the file I/O controller, wherein the information received from the selector by the transmitter is band-limited to correspond to the limited transmission band and the band-limited information is transmitted to the terminal device, or, the information received from the selector by the transmitter is deleted by the filter according to the priority table, while at the same time the information received from the selector by the file I/O controller is non band-limited and stored in the file device.