REPRODUCING APPARATUS, REPRODUCING METHOD, REPRODUCING PROGRAM, RECORDING MEDIUM, AND DATA STRUCTURE

• US 20090279867A1
• Filed: 11/10/2005
• Published: 11/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Ihara, Koji, Utsumi, Shusuke, Hamada, Toshiya, Kakumu, Tatsuya, Fujinami, Yasushi
• Granted Patent: US 8,369,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/248
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2562 DVDs [digital versatile discs]; Digital video discs; MMCDs; HDCDs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/102 Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers access by moving the head G11B3/08, G11B5/54, G11B7/085, G11B21/022; by moving the record carrier G11B15/005, G11B17/005, by driving of both record carrier and head G11B15/1816
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/329 on a disc [VTOC]
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A state transition of a player operation is explicitly defined to facilitate the production of interactive contents. As a player model for reproducing a disk, a model including a player 300 for reproducing a stream, a platform 301 providing an interface between the player 300 and a hardware, and a script player 302 for realizing a scenario intended by a content producer is conceived. The states of the player 300 are defined by four states defined by combinations of two states as to whether the play list reproduction is performed or not and two states as to whether the command 311 is accepted or not. The state transition of the player 300 among the four states is generated by a method 313 from the script layer 302, but not by the player 300 itself or the command 311. The states of the player 300 are small in number, and the conditions for state transition are definite. Therefore, the interactive contents can be easily produced and mounted on devices.

Claims

1. A reproducing apparatus for reproducing content data recorded in a recording medium, comprising:

read means for reading data from a recording medium having recorded therein content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and a reproduction control program for controlling the reproduction of the content data;

player means for reproducing the content data in accordance with the reproduction control program; and

control command output means for giving a control command corresponding to a user operation to the player means,

characterized in that the player means controls the reproduction of the content data based on four states defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command from the control command output means is accepted or not.

2. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that

a state transition among the four states of the player means is caused by the reproduction control program.

3. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that

a state transition among the four states of the player means is not caused by the control command.

4. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that

the state transition among the four states of the player means is not voluntarily caused by the player means.

5. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that

the player means is in a state not generating the content data and not accepting the control command from the control command output means immediately after initialization.

6. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

first storage means for storing reproduction state information indicating a state of the content data during the reproduction by the player means; and

second storage means for backing up the reproduction state information stored in the first storage means,

characterized in that the reproduction state information stored in the first storage means is backed up in the second storage means and the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means is restored to the first storage means along with the state transition among the four states of the player means.

7. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that

the backup operation is performed at the time of the state transition of the player means from the state in which the control command is accepted and the content data is reproduced to another state.

8. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that

the restoration is performed at the time of state transition of the player means to the state in which the control command is accepted and the content data is reproduced.

9. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that

the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means is discarded after the restoration in the case where the restoration is performed along with the state transition based on an instruction of the reproduction control program to restore the reproduction of the content data using the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means.

10. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that

the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means is discarded in the case where based on an instruction of the reproduction control program to reproduce the content data, the player means transits to the state in which the control command is accepted and the content data is reproduced.

11. The reproducing apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that

information as to whether the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means is to be discarded or not is added to the instruction of the reproduction control program to the player means to stop the reproduction of the contents.

12. A reproducing method for reproducing content data recorded in a recording medium, characterized in that

the reproduction of content data by player means in accordance with a reproduction control program read from the recording medium having recorded therein the content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and the reproduction control program for controlling the reproduction of the control data, is controlled based on four states of the player means defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command corresponding to a user operation is accepted or not.

13. A reproducing program for causing a computer system to execute a reproducing method for reproducing content data recorded in a recording medium, characterized in that

the reproducing method is such that the reproduction of content data by player means in accordance with a reproduction control program read from a recording medium having recorded therein the content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and the reproduction control program for controlling the reproduction of the content data, is controlled based on four states of the player means defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command corresponding to a user operation is accepted or not.

14. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein a reproducing program for causing a computer system to execute a reproducing method for reproducing content data recorded in a recording medium, characterized in that

the reproducing method is such that the reproduction of content data by player means in accordance with a reproduction control program read from a recording medium having recorded therein the content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and the reproduction control program for controlling the reproduction of the content data, is controlled based on four states of the player means defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command corresponding to a user operation is accepted or not.

15. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and a reproduction control program for causing player means to control the reproduction of the content data, characterized in that

the reproduction control program is executed in such a manner that the player means for controlling the reproduction of the content data is instructed to control the reproduction of the content based on four state defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command corresponding to a user operation is accepted or not.

16. The computer-readable recording medium according to claim 15, characterized in that

the reproduction control program causes the player means to generate the state transition among the four states.

17. The computer-readable recording medium according to claim 15, characterized in that

the reproduction control program is executed in such a manner that information as to whether reproduction state information backed up in second storage means is to be discarded or not is added to the content reproduction stop instruction given to the player means in which the state transition among the four states of the player means is accompanied by the backup operation in which the reproduction state information indicating the state of the currently reproduced content data and stored in first storage means is backed up in the second storage means and the restoring operation in which the reproduction state information backed up in the second storage means is restored into the first storage means.

18. A data structure comprising content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and a reproduction control program for causing player means to control the reproduction of the content data, characterized in that

the reproduction control program is executed in such a manner that the reproduction of the content is controlled by giving a reproduction control instruction to the player means for controlling the reproduction of the content data based on four states defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command corresponding to a user operation is accepted or not.

19. A reproducing apparatus for reproducing content data recorded in a recording medium, comprising:

a read unit for reading data from a recording medium having recorded therein content data including at least one of a video stream and an audio stream and a reproduction control program for controlling the reproduction of the content data;

a player unit for playing the content data in accordance with the reproduction control program; and

a control command output unit for giving a control command corresponding to a user operation to the player unit,

characterized in that the player unit controls the reproduction of the content data based on four states defined by combinations of two states classified according to whether the content data is reproduced or not and two states classified according to whether the control command from the control command output unit is accepted or not.