The conventional multimedia communication terminals require the implementation of a camera unit for video input and a video encoder for generating encoded video streams. This configuration is expensive and power-consuming, so that the life of battery for driving the transmitter will be short, or otherwise a battery of larger capacity will be required, resulting in a larger size terminal, with less portability. In accordance with the present invention, the video input and encoding process may be implemented in a video information generating apparatus separated apart from the transmitter. The video or audio and video bitstream generated by the video information generating apparatus will be retrieved by the transmitter, or stored once in a server and then forwarded to a receiver.