TV phone apparatus and control method therefor

1. A TV phone apparatus comprising: a communication section that performs transmission and reception of communication data;

multiple image-taking sections that take multiple moving images with different parallaxes and output multiple pieces of moving image data;

a voice input section that acquires voice and outputs voice data; and

a control section that transmits the multiple pieces of moving image data and the voice data via said communication section, and, when reception quality of the communication data changes to become equal to or below a reference value, stops at least one of said multiple image-taking sections to stop transmission of at least one of the multiple pieces of moving image data;

wherein if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said control section stops said multiple image-taking sections except for one section and stops transmission of the multiple pieces of moving image data except for one piece.

2. The TV phone apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value and above a second reference value that is smaller than the reference value, said control section stops said multiple image-taking sections except for one section and stop transmission of the multiple pieces of moving image data except for one piece, and, if the reception quality is equal to or below the second reference value, stops all of said multiple image-taking sections to stop transmission of all the multiple pieces of moving image data.

3. A TV phone apparatus comprising: a communication section that performs transmission and reception of communication data;

multiple image-taking sections that take multiple moving images with different parallaxes and output multiple pieces of moving image data;

a voice input section that acquires voice and outputs voice data; and

a control section that transmits the multiple pieces of moving image data and the voice data via said communication section, and, when reception quality of the communication data changes to become equal to or below a reference value, stops at least one of said multiple image-taking sections to stop transmission of at least one of the multiple pieces of moving image data;

wherein:

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said control section stops all of said multiple image-taking sections to stop transmission of all the multiple pieces of moving image data; and

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said control section extracts still image data from each piece of moving image data outputted from each image-taking section before the stop, records the still image data into said recording section, and repeatedly transmits each of the recorded pieces of still image data via said communication section.

4. The TV phone apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein

said image-taking sections are provided with a still image mode of taking multiple still images with different parallaxes and outputting the still images as multiple pieces of second still image data; and

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said control section periodically activates said image-taking sections in the still image mode and updates each piece of still image data in said recording section according to each piece of second still image data outputted at the time of the activation.

5. A control method for a TV phone apparatus that comprises a communication section that performs transmission and reception of communication data;

multiple image-taking sections that take multiple moving images with different parallaxes and output multiple pieces of moving image data; and a voice input section that acquires voice and outputs voice data, wherein

the multiple pieces of moving image data and the voice data are transmitted via said communication section; and

when reception quality of the communication data changes to become equal to or below a reference value, at least one of said multiple image-taking sections is stopped to stop transmission of at least one of the multiple pieces of moving image data;

wherein if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said TV phone apparatus stops said multiple image-taking sections except for one section and stops transmission of the multiple pieces of moving image data except for one piece.

6. A control method for a TV phone apparatus that comprises a communication section that performs transmission and reception of communication data; multiple image-taking sections that take multiple moving images with different parallaxes and output multiple pieces of moving image data; and a voice input section that acquires voice and outputs voice data, wherein

the multiple pieces of moving image data and the voice data are transmitted via said communication section; and

when reception quality of the communication data changes to become equal to or below a reference value, at least one of said multiple image-taking sections is stopped to stop transmission of at least one of the multiple pieces of moving image data;

wherein:

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said TV phone apparatus stops all of said multiple image-taking sections to stop transmission of all the multiple pieces of moving image data; and

if the reception quality is equal to or below the reference value, said TV phone apparatus extracts still image data from each piece of moving image data outputted from each image-taking section before the stop, records the still image data into a recording section, and repeatedly transmits each of the recorded pieces of still image data via said communication section.