METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HYBRID AUDIO-VISUAL COMMUNICATION

摘要

A method and apparatus for providing communication between a sending terminal and one or more receiving terminals in a communication network. The media content of a signal transmitted by the sending terminal is detected and one or more of a voice stream, an avatar control parameter stream and a video stream are generated from the media content. At least one of the voice stream, the avatar control parameter stream and the video stream are selected as an output to be transmitted to the receiving terminal. The selection may be based on user preference, channel capacity, terminal capabilities or the load status of a network server performing the selection. The network server may be operable to generate synthetic video from the voice input, a natural video input and/or incoming avatar control parameters.