DATA COMMUNICATION NETWORK DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS DISTRIBUTING METHOD AND SYSTEM, MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS TRANSMISSION METHOD

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting multimedia and video data from a server (host computer) to a plurality of customer systems connected to a communication network. In particular, according to the invention, preprocessed video and multimedia data packets are stored in a network switch. When the customer system wants to receive video and multimedia data, it sends a request to the host computer and then sends a control message to the switch storing the requested data. These switches then send the required data to the customer system. If no data is stored on the switch, the data must be transferred directly from the server to the customer system.