| 摘要 |
A data transfer system comprises a server and a plurality of devices each operable as a client of the server; the server in turn comprises notification means to notify a device that it is to become a member of a peer group comprising other clients of the server, and a client/server data transmission means to send data to the respective device upon such notification; each device in turn comprises client/server data reception means to receive respective data from the server, and peer-to-peer (P2P) communication means to send respective data received from the server to one or more peers, and to receive from one or more peers respective data that was sent to it or them by the server. Aspects of the invention include selecting membership of a peer group (games console) by the server according to the behavior/location/interaction of their avatar (within an online virtual environment). Thus, where two of more avatars are positioned so as to view streamed content, it is wasteful of bandwidth for the server to send each console separate copies of the media, so the server notifies each console that they form part of a P2P grouping and respective elements of the content are streamed from the server to each entertainment device, which then share these elements with the other devices corresponding to other avatars. |
