JP2006339855A - Network control apparatus, coding system conversion apparatus, and content data reproduction system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a network system capable of more suitably selecting an apparatus for carrying out transcoding when a plurality of apparatuses performing transcoding exist on a network. <P>SOLUTION: When a plurality of virtual media servers capable of carrying out transcoder processing into a format reproduciable by a media renderer exist on the network (S801), a control point ranks the media servers in the higher order of resources associated with coding conversion capability (S805). The resource information is described in a device description exchanged in the UPnP. The media server most proper to the transcoder processing of content data is selected on the basis of the resource information (S806 to S808). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a content data reproduction system that reproduces content data, a network control device that controls the content data reproduction system, and an encoding method conversion device that converts an encoding method of content data.

  In recent years, so-called home networks have been conceived in which electronic devices and information devices such as audio devices, recorders, and PCs (Personal Computers) are connected via a network, and communication between these devices is enabled (for example, Patent Documents). 1). The home network enables data processing functions of each device to be shared by performing communication between network connection devices. Patent Document 1 discloses a media server under the control of a client as a control point. A system for viewing content data stored in a media renderer is described.

Note that UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) is known as a protocol suitable for such a home network configuration. UPnP is a technology that enables a device connected to a network to receive a service provided by each connected device without performing complicated operations. A definition file compliant with XML (Extensible Markup Language) is connected between connected devices. Replace and perform mutual recognition between devices.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-020180

  However, in a system such as that described in Patent Document 1, content data stored in a media server may differ from a format that can be played back by a media renderer. For example, the data stored in the media server is MPEG2 (Moving Picture Experts Group phase 2), and the moving image format that can be reproduced by the media renderer is MPEG4. Therefore, it is considered to arrange a transcoding device (hereinafter referred to as a virtual media server) on the same network. Here, the virtual media server plays a role of converting content on the media server into a format reproducible by the media renderer.

  Such a transcoding processing amount is generally a bottleneck because it is generally larger than the processing amount for processing related to network transfer by a network router or the like. Therefore, when there are a plurality of such virtual media servers on the network, if a virtual media server with low transcoding capability is selected, there is a possibility that a content that is desired to be viewed in real time is not reproduced in real time.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a network system that can perform this selection more suitably when there are a plurality of devices that perform transcoding on the network.

  In order to achieve the above object, a network control device according to the present invention is a network control device that enables content data provided by a content management device to be reproduced by a reproduction device after the coding method is converted by the coding method conversion device. , Receiving means for receiving conversion capability information via a network from one or more encoding method conversion devices for converting the encoding method of content data, and the reproduction based on the conversion capability information received by the receiving means. A determination unit that determines a coding method conversion device that performs conversion of a coding method of content data reproduced by the device, and a coding method conversion that performs conversion of the coding method of the content data determined by the determination unit Instruction means for instructing the apparatus to transmit the content data after the encoding method conversion to the reproduction apparatus. And it features.

  The encoding method conversion apparatus of the present invention receives an instruction from the network control device via the network, converts the encoding method of the content data provided by the content management device, and enables reproduction on the reproduction device In the system conversion device, a conversion unit that converts the encoding method of the content data provided by the content management device, and a transmission unit that transmits conversion capability information regarding the conversion capability of the encoding method of the conversion unit to the network control device And a reproducing means for enabling the reproducing apparatus to reproduce the content data converted by the converting means in response to an instruction from the network control apparatus.

  The content data reproduction system of the present invention includes a content management device that provides content data, a plurality of encoding method conversion devices that convert the encoding method of content data provided by the content management device, and the encoding method conversion. A reproduction apparatus that reproduces content data whose encoding system has been converted by the apparatus; and the encoding that performs conversion of an encoding system of content data reproduced by the reproduction apparatus from the plurality of encoding system conversion apparatuses A network control device for determining a method conversion device, wherein the encoding method conversion device transmits conversion capability information to the network control device, and the network control device receives the conversion received from the encoding method conversion device. Based on the capability information, conversion of the encoding method of the content data reproduced by the reproduction device is performed. And determines the power sale the coding method conversion apparatus.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a network system capable of more suitably performing this selection when there are a plurality of devices that perform transcoding on the network.

  Hereinafter, a control device, an encoding method conversion device, and a content data reproduction system of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a content data reproduction system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. The content data reproduction system 10 includes a TV 11 that views content data, a recorder 12 that stores the content data, and PCs 13 and 14 that have a function of converting the encoding method of the content data stored in the recorder 12. . The TV 11, the recorder 12, and the PCs 13 and 14 are connected to a network 15 through which communication is performed by TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) / IP (Internet Protocol).

  The TV 11, the recorder 12, and the PCs 13 and 14 are devices that support UPnP, respectively. In UPnP, devices, services, and control points are defined as basic network configurations. A device is a device that supports UPnP, and a service is a minimum unit that represents a function provided by the device. Each device has at least one service. The control point controls and uses services that the device has. A single device can have a plurality of device functions, and a device in which a control point and a device are integrated can be considered.

  In the content data playback system 10, the TV 11 is a control point 11a (network control device) and a media renderer 11b (playback device) as a device, the recorder 12 is a media server 11a (content management device) as a device, and the PC 13 is a device. A certain virtual media server 13a (encoding method conversion device) constitutes a virtual media server 14a (encoding method conversion device) in which the PC 14 is a device.

  Here, the media renderer 11b and the media server 12a are defined by UPnP AV, which is used for UPnP AV (Audio Visual). The media server 12a serves as a storage and streaming source for content data. The media renderer 11b plays a role of content data reproduction and streaming. The control point 11a has a function of establishing a stream transmission path between the two devices and controlling the transmission by inquiring the location of the content data to the media server 12a and selecting the media renderer 11b. The control point 11a recognizes each device, that is, the media renderer 11b, the media server 12a, and the virtual media servers 13a and 14a by SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) in accordance with the UPnP standard.

  Each of the virtual media server 13a and the virtual media server 14a has a transcoding function for converting the encoding method of the content data stored in the media server 12a, and is virtually the same as the media server 12a. Can serve as. That is, for example, assuming that the content data is stored in the media server 12a in the MPEG2 encoding method, and the virtual media server 13a has a transcoding function from MPEG2 to MPEG4 and from MPEG2 to MPEG1, the control point When 11a makes an inquiry to the virtual media server 13a, it can be seen that the content data of the three encoding methods of the MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 formats can be used. When the control point 11a selects, for example, the MPEG4 format and transmits a request for playback by the media renderer 11b to the virtual media server 13a, the virtual media server 13a requests the recorder 12 to transmit content data in the MPEG2 format, The media server 13a converts the encoding method of the content data transmitted from the recorder 12 into the MPEG4 format, and then transmits this to the media renderer 11b.

  In the following description, the PC 13 constituting the device of the virtual media server 13a has a transcoding function from MPEG2 to MPEG4, MPEG2 to MPEG1, and has a CPU frequency of 200 MHz and a memory storage capacity of 256 MByte. To do. The PC 14 constituting the virtual media server 14a has a transcoding function from MPEG2 to MPEG4, the CPU frequency is 1 GHz, and the storage capacity of the memory is 1 GB.

Next, the configuration of the TV 11 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the TV 11.
The TV 11 includes a CPU 20 (determination unit), a network interface 21 (reception unit, instruction unit), a display control unit 22, a display screen 23, and a memory 24 (storage unit). The CPU 20, the network interface 21, the display control unit 22, and the memory 24 are connected to each other via a bus.

  The CPU 20 executes a predetermined control program and controls the overall operation of the TV 11. With the control program executed on the CPU 20, the TV 11 can perform the function as the control point 11a and the function as the media renderer 11b as a device.

  Further, the CPU 20 functions as a function of the control point 11a, and receives resource information from the network interface 21 regarding the CPU frequency of the virtual media server 13a and the virtual media server 14a and the storage capacity of the memory, or conversion processing information 24a stored in the memory 24. Based on the above, a virtual media server used for transcoding is determined. This process will be described in detail later.

  The network interface 21 is an interface for communicating with the network 15, and receives resource information regarding the CPU frequency and the memory capacity from the virtual media server 13a and the virtual media server 14a as described above. Furthermore, when the CPU 20 determines a virtual media server to be used for transcoding, a command for instructing the virtual media server to transmit content data to the media renderer 11b is transmitted from the network interface 21.

  The display control unit 22 performs display control for displaying video based on content data received from the network interface 21 on the display screen 23 under the control of the CPU 20 as the media renderer 11b. In the following description, it is assumed that the display control unit 22 corresponds to content data in the MPEG4 format or the MPEG1 format and does not correspond to the MPEG2 format.

The memory 24 is used as temporary storage used for processing of the CPU 20 and stores conversion processing information 24a.
In addition to the configuration shown in FIG. 2, an HDD may be provided so that content data is once stored in the HDD and can be reproduced later.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of the conversion processing information 24a. As shown in FIG. 3, the conversion processing information 24a includes a file name of content data reproduced by the media renderer 11b, a virtual media server that has performed the transcoding process of the content data, its conversion method, and a file of the content data. The history of the size, that is, the data amount and the processing time required for the transcoding process is described. Based on this conversion processing information 24a, the CPU 20 sums up the past processing time and data amount in the conversion method of each virtual media server, and divides this total data amount by the total processing time, The amount of processing data per unit time in each virtual media server can be grasped, and the virtual media server to be used can be determined based on this.

  Next, the configuration of the PC 13, which is the virtual media server 13a, will be described with reference to FIGS. As described above, the PC 14, which is the virtual media server 14a, has the same configuration as the virtual media server 13a, although the encoding method, CPU frequency, and memory storage capacity that can be encoded and converted are different from those of the PC 13. Description is omitted.

  The PC 13 includes a CPU 30, a network interface 31 (transmission means, playback means), a memory 32, and an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 33.

  The CPU 30 executes a predetermined control program and controls the overall operation of the PC 13. With the control program executed on the CPU 30, the PC 13 can function as the virtual media server 13a. Further, on the CPU 30, an encoding system conversion program 30a (conversion means) is executed, content data of the media server 12a is received from the network interface 31, and conversion of this encoding system is performed using the memory 32 as a temporary storage. Processing is performed, and the converted content data is transmitted from the network interface 31.

  As described above, the memory 32 is used as a temporary storage at the time of transcoding processing by the CPU 30 executing the encoding method conversion program 30a. In other words, the transcode processing in the PC 13 is greatly related to the CPU frequency that is the processing capability of the CPU 30 and the storage capacity of the memory 32.

  The HDD 33 stores encoding scheme conversion processing capability information 33a related to the encoding conversion processing capability of the PC 13, which is the virtual media server 13a. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the encoding method conversion processing capability information 33a. In the example of FIG. 5, as the encoding method conversion processing capability information, the CPU frequency of the PC 13 (200 MHz in the example of FIG. 5), the memory storage capacity (256 MByte in the example of FIG. 5), and the encoding method capable of conversion processing (FIG. 5). In example 5, MPEG2 to MPEG4 and MPEG2 to MPEG1) are described.

  Next, the flow of content data playback processing in the content data playback system 10 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram showing a flow of processing when content data stored in the media server 12a is converted by the virtual media server 14a and reproduced by the media renderer 11b. In the processing of FIG. 6, all communication between the devices is performed in accordance with the UPnP standard.

  First, the control point 11a transmits a device search request to the virtual media server 13a (S601). This device search request corresponds to transmission of a description request message in UPnP.

  When the virtual media server 13a receives the device search request from the control point 11a, the virtual media server 13a transmits the device search request to the media server 12a having content data that can be presented to the control point 11a (S602). ).

  Upon receiving the device search request from the virtual media server 13a, the media server 12a transmits a device description, which is device information of the media server 12a, to the virtual media server 13a (S603). By receiving this device description, the virtual media server 13a can obtain information such as whether the media server 12a is a device compatible with UPnP AV.

  When the virtual media server 13a receives device information from the media server 12a, the virtual media server 13a transmits a device description, which is device information of the virtual media server 13a, to the control point 11a (S604). In this device description, resource information that is the transcoding processing capability of the virtual media server 13a is described.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a device description that is device information transmitted from the virtual media server 13a to the control point 11a. As shown in FIG. 7, the device description includes a device type of the virtual media server 13a, a device manufacturer, a list of services that can be provided by the virtual media server 13a, a URL used when receiving the service, and the like. And resource information 70 related to the transcoding process of the virtual media server 13a is described. More specifically, in the example of FIG. 7, a transcode_res element for describing the resource information 70 in the device description is provided. In the transcode_res element, the CPU frequency and memory capacity of the virtual media server 13a are described as child elements. Also, a transcode_format element is provided as a child element of the transcode_res element, an input encoding method of transcoding processing is described in the input element as the child element, and an output encoding method is described in the output element. In the example of FIG. 7, it can be seen that transcoding from MPEG2 to MPEG4 and from MPEG2 to MPEG1 is possible.

  Returning to the description of FIG. 6, the control point 11a transmits a device search request to the virtual media server 14a as well as S601 (S605). Upon receiving the device search request, the virtual media server 14a transmits a device search request to the media server 12a as in the process of S602 (S606), and the media server 12a receives the device search request in the same manner as in S603. It transmits to the virtual media server 14a (S607). After receiving the device information of the media server 12a, the virtual media server 14a transmits its own device information to the control point 11a as in S604 (S608).

  When the control point 11a acquires device information from the virtual media server 13a, the control point 11a then transmits a content search request to acquire content information that can be provided by the virtual media server 13a (S609). When receiving the content search request, the virtual media server 13a transmits the content search request to the media server 12a that stores the content data before encoding conversion (S610). On the other hand, the media server 12a transmits content information regarding content data that the media server 12a can provide. (S611). This content information is described in a CDS format compliant with UPnP AV.

  Further, when receiving the content information from the media server 12a, the virtual media server 13a transmits the content information regarding the content data that can be provided by the virtual media server 13a to the control point 11a based on this information. That is, for example, if content data in the MPEG2 format is stored in the media server 12a, and the virtual media server 13a has a transcoding function from MPEG2 to MPEG1 and MPEG2 to MPEG4, the content data is converted to MPEG1, MPEG2. , And content information indicating that it can be provided in the MPEG4 format is transmitted to the control point 11a.

  Further, when the control point 11a receives device information from the virtual media server 14a (S608), content information is also exchanged among the control point 11a, the virtual media server 14a, and the media server 12a (S613 to S616). Since the processing from S613 to S616 is the same as the processing from S609 to S612, description thereof is omitted here.

  When the control point 11a acquires content information from the virtual media servers 13a and 14a, a list of content data that can be reproduced by the media renderer 11b and its format are obtained. For example, when the user selects content data to be viewed on the media renderer 11b from the list, the control point 11a provides virtual data that provides content data to be reproduced on the media renderer 11b based on the device information acquired in S604 and S608. A media server is determined (S617). This process will be described later with reference to FIG. 8. Here, the following description will be given assuming that the virtual media server 14a is selected.

  When the virtual media server (here, the virtual media server 14a) that provides the content data is determined, an instruction to transmit the content data in a predetermined format to the media renderer 11b is sent to the virtual media server 14a (S618). When the content data transmission instruction is received from the control point 11a, the virtual media server 14a transmits an instruction to transmit the content data to the media server 12a (S619), and the media server 12a responds to the received transmission instruction. In response, the instructed content data is transmitted to the virtual media server 14a (S620). The virtual media server 14a sequentially performs transcoding processing for converting the content data received from the media server 12a into the format designated by the control point 11a in S618, and transmits this to the media renderer 11b. This is reproduced (S621).

  Next, details of the processing flow of S617 of FIG. 6 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing of the control point 11a when determining a virtual media server to be used for transcoding processing.

  The control point 11a first determines whether there are a plurality of virtual media servers that can be converted from the format of the content data stored in the media server 12a to a format that can be played back by the media renderer 11b (S801). If there is only one virtual media server that can be converted (No in S801), the virtual media server is selected (S802), and the process ends.

  If there are a plurality of virtual media servers that can perform transcoding processing into a format that can be played back by the media renderer 11b (Yes in S801), the conversion processing information 24a related to the transcoding processing for each device is displayed. It is determined whether or not there is (S803). That is, for example, when the format of content data stored in the media server 12a is MPEG2, and the virtual media servers 13a and 14a can transcode from MPEG2 to MPEG4 that can be played back by the media renderer 11b, the virtual media Each of the servers 13a and 14a determines whether or not the conversion processing information 24a includes information when the conversion processing from MPEG2 to MPEG4 is performed.

  If there is conversion processing information 24a for both of the virtual media servers 13a and 14a (Yes in S803), the transcoding processing capability for each device is ranked based on the conversion processing information 24a (S804). As described above, this method is determined by the amount of processing data per unit time obtained by dividing the total amount of content data that has been subjected to the transcoding processing in the past by the total processing time required for the transcoding processing. The The media servers 13a and 14a are ranked in descending order of the amount of processing data per unit time.

  When the conversion processing information 24a for both the virtual media servers 13a and 14a is not available (No in S803), ranking is performed in descending order of resources (S805). More specifically, the determination is made based on the CPU frequency and the memory storage capacity described in the resource information 70 among the device information received from the media servers 13a and 14a (corresponding to S604 and S608 in FIG. 6). For example, in order of increasing product of the CPU frequency and the memory storage capacity, it is determined that the transcoding processing capability is high, and ranking is performed. At this time, since the CPU frequency generally contributes more to the transcode processing capability, it is more preferable to increase the weighting of the CPU frequency than the memory storage capacity.

  When the ranking for each of the media servers 13a and 14a is completed (S804, S805), it is determined whether or not the processing in the media renderer 11b is a streaming processing that requires real-time processing such as when the user views in real time. Judgment is made (S806). If it is streaming processing (Yes in S806), the virtual media server determined to have high transcoding processing capability is selected (S807). If the processing in the media renderer 11b is not a real-time processing, for example, if it is a non-streaming process such as when the media renderer 11b is stored once and can be played back later, the transcoding processing capability is The virtual media server determined to be low is selected (S808).

  According to the above processing, the virtual media server 13a can transcode from MPEG2 to MPEG4 or MPEG1, the CPU frequency is 200 MHz, the memory storage capacity is 256 MByte, and the virtual media server 14a is transcoded from MPEG2 to MPEG4. When the code is possible, the CPU frequency is 1 GHz, the memory storage capacity is 1 GB, and the media renderer 11b is compatible with the MPEG1 format, the virtual media can be used in both streaming processing and non-streaming processing. Server 13a is selected. On the other hand, when the media renderer 11b is compatible with the MPEG4 format, the virtual media server 14a is selected for streaming processing, and the virtual media server 13a is selected for non-streaming processing.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, by describing the resource information 70 in the device description that is the device information transmitted from the virtual media server 13a and the virtual media server 14a to the control point 11a. The control point 11a can select a more suitable virtual media server for the transcoding process based on the resource information 70.

  Furthermore, this exchange of information is performed in a form compliant with the UPnP standard, and can be processed with many devices compatible with UPnP, and connected to the network without performing complicated operations, which is a feature of UPnP. Advantages such as being able to receive the service provided by each connected device in the device can also be obtained.

  Further, in the present embodiment, in the case of streaming processing that requires real-time processing, it is possible to suppress processing delay by assigning a virtual media server with high processing capability. Furthermore, in the case of non-streaming processing that does not require real-time processing, a virtual media server with low processing capability is allocated, so that even when an instruction to perform streaming processing comes after this, virtual processing with high processing capability is performed. The media server can be used.

  In the present embodiment, the control point 11a stores the history relating to the encoding conversion process as conversion process information 24a. When this information is present, the control point 11a is not based on the resource information 70 but based on the conversion process information 24a. Select a media server. Since the actual measurement value processed in the past is considered to be closer to the actual processing capability than the encoding conversion processing capability estimated based on the resource information 70, a more suitable virtual media server is selected by this. be able to. Further, when the virtual media server has a chip dedicated to transcoding processing, the processing capability does not depend on the CPU frequency or the like, so it is possible to cope with such a case.

  In the present embodiment, the CPU information and the memory storage capacity are described in the resource information 70 related to the coding conversion processing capability, but the present invention is not limited to this embodiment. The CPU usage rate and the memory usage rate in the media servers 13a and 14a may be included. As a result, it is possible to obtain a form closer to the actual encoding conversion processing capacity that can be actually used.

  Further, the virtual media servers 13 a and 14 a may have a processing data amount per unit time that is a guideline for the encoding conversion process, and this may be described in the resource information 70.

  In this embodiment, the TV 11 constitutes the control point 11a, the media renderer 11b, the PC 13 constitutes the virtual media server 13a, the PC 14 constitutes the virtual media server 14a, and the recorder 12 constitutes the media server 12a. For example, the TV 11 has one of the two virtual media servers, the recorder 12 has the function of the control point 11a, or the control point and each device are more than the present embodiment. There may be a configuration such as

The figure which shows the structure of the content data reproduction | regeneration system which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the structure of TV which is a control point and media renderer based on Example 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the conversion process information which the control point which concerns on Example 1 of this invention has. The figure which shows the structure of PC which is a virtual media server which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. The figure which shows the example of the encoding system conversion processing capability information which the virtual media server which concerns on Example 1 of this invention has. The figure which shows the flow of the reproduction | regeneration processing of the content data in the content data reproduction system which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. 4 is an example of device information transmitted from the virtual media server according to the first embodiment of the present invention to a control point. The figure which shows the flow of a process at the time of the control point which concerns on Example 1 of this invention determines the virtual media server used for a transcoding process.

Explanation of symbols

10 ... Content data playback system 11 ... TV
11a ... Control point 11b ... Media renderer 12 ... Recorder 12a ... Media server 13, 14 ... PC
13a, 14a ... virtual media server 15 ... network 20 ... CPU
21 ... Network interface 22 ... Display control unit 23 ... Display screen 24 ... Memory 24a ... Conversion processing information 30 ... CPU
30a ... Coding method conversion program 31 ... Network interface 32 ... Memory 33 ... HDD
33a ... Coding method conversion processing capability information 70 ... Resource information

Claims (13)

In the network control device that enables the content data provided by the content management device to be reproduced by the reproduction device after the coding method is converted by the coding method conversion device,
Receiving means for receiving conversion capability information via a network from one or more encoding method conversion devices for converting the encoding method of content data;
Determining means for determining an encoding method conversion device for converting an encoding method of content data reproduced by the reproduction device based on the conversion capability information received by the reception means;
Instructing means for instructing transmission of content data after encoding method conversion to the playback device to an encoding method conversion device that performs conversion of the encoding method of the content data determined by the determining unit. A network control device. 2. The network control device according to claim 1, wherein the receiving unit receives the conversion capability information by UPnP. The determining means is based on the conversion capability information received by the receiving means,
When performing the streaming process in the playback device, the encoding method conversion device having a high conversion capability of the encoding method is used as an encoding method conversion device for converting the encoding method of the content data reproduced by the playback device. The network control device according to claim 1, wherein the network control device is determined. 4. The network control device according to claim 1, wherein the conversion capability information includes information related to a CPU frequency of the encoding method conversion device or information related to a memory capacity. The network control device according to claim 4, wherein the conversion capability information includes information on a CPU usage rate or a memory usage rate of the encoding method conversion device. The network control device according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
Storage means for storing conversion processing information related to processing time and processing data amount related to conversion of content data encoding method by the encoding method conversion device;
The network control device characterized in that the determining means determines a coding method conversion device that performs conversion of a coding method of content data reproduced by a reproduction device based on the conversion processing information. In an encoding method conversion device that receives an instruction from a network control device via a network, converts the encoding method of content data provided by the content management device, and enables reproduction on the reproduction device.
Conversion means for converting the encoding method of the content data provided by the content management device;
Transmitting means for transmitting conversion capability information related to the conversion capability of the encoding method of the conversion means to the network control device;
An encoding method conversion apparatus comprising: reproduction means that allows the reproduction apparatus to reproduce the content data converted by the conversion means in response to an instruction from the network control apparatus. 8. The encoding method conversion apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the transmission unit transmits the conversion capability information to the control unit by UPnP. 9. The encoding method conversion according to claim 7, wherein the conversion capability information includes information on a frequency of a CPU used by the conversion unit or information on a memory capacity used by the conversion unit. apparatus. The encoding method conversion apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the conversion capability information includes information on the CPU usage rate or the memory usage rate. A content management device that provides content data;
A plurality of encoding method conversion devices for converting the encoding method of content data provided by the content management device;
A playback device for playing back the content data whose encoding method has been converted by the encoding method conversion device;
A network control device that determines the coding method conversion device that performs conversion of the coding method of content data reproduced by the reproduction device from the plurality of coding method conversion devices;
The encoding method conversion device transmits conversion capability information to the network control device,
The network control device determines the encoding method conversion device for converting the encoding method of the content data reproduced by the reproduction device based on the conversion capability information received from the encoding method conversion device. A featured content data playback system. 12. The content data reproduction system according to claim 11, wherein transmission of the conversion capability information by the encoding method conversion device to the network control device is performed by UPnP. The network control device is based on the conversion capability information received from the encoding method conversion device,
When a streaming process is performed in the playback device, an encoding method conversion device having a high encoding method conversion capability is used as an encoding method conversion device for converting the encoding method of content data played back by the playback device. 12. The content data reproducing system according to claim 11, wherein the content data reproducing system is determined.

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