In a system for transmitting multimedia data including video data, audio
data, graphic data, text data and the like via a network, sets of media
data are stored in a plurality of servers in a distributed state. When
requested multimedia data is assigned from a transmitter, necessary sets
of data from among media data stored in the servers in a distributed
state are acquired by corresponding receivers in accordance with the
assignment. A synchronization control unit and a multiplexer multiplex
the acquired media data based on time stamps of the data, and transmit
multimedia data after the multiplexing to a client which has assigned the
multimedia data. According to such a configuration, distributed
multimedia servers can be constructed without taking into consideration
of influence by the effective rates of transmission channels from the
respective servers.