ON-DEMAND DATA STREAMING PARCELING

A client device, or information appliance such as a personal digital assistant, is capable of receiving multimedia data streams from a server. However, due to processing and display capabilities, the client device may not be able to present the complete data stream, or a user may elect to configure the client device not to process data that will unduly reduce the client device's performance. Accordingly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for allowing a server to determine the native, or user selected, capabilities of a client device, such that the server can filter and parse the data into meaningfully presentable data and non-meaningfully presentable data, and then transmit only the meaningfully presentable data to the client device for processing and display. In an alternative embodiment, the server sends the complete data stream to the client device, and the client device filters and parses the data, and then processes only the meaningfully presentable data for display on the client device.