Method and apparatus for partial file delete

• US 7,889,973 B2
• Filed: 11/03/2003
• Issued: 02/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Saturn Licensing LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Poslinski, Thomas F., Ryal, Kim Annon
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Thai
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shibru; Helen
• Application Number:
  US10/700,802
• Publication Number:
  US 20040091239A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,661 Days
• Field of Search: 386125-126, 386111-112, 386/52, 386/55, 386/83, 386/124, 386/278, 386/291, 386/281, 386/326
• US Class Current: 386/278
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/781 on disks or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/7921 for more than one processing mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8042 involving data reduction

Abstract

A method of increasing the available storage space on an electronic storage medium comprising the steps of providing a free memory list for the electronic storage medium; selecting a portion of a file stored on the electronic storage medium; and adding the selected portion of the file to the free memory list. A method of increasing the available storage space on a personal video recorder comprising the steps of storing a media file on a memory of the personal video recorder; receiving a signal for marking a starting flag for the media file; receiving a signal for marking an ending flag for the media file; and freeing the memory of the personal video recorder that contains a portion of the media file between the starting flag and the delete flag.

Claims

1. A method of increasing the available storage space in a memory comprising the steps of:

storing a first file in the memory, the first file including a plurality of individual sectors and being separate and self-contained from a second file stored in the memory, the plurality sectors of the first file being configured to be linked together and presentable to a user as a complete audiovisual presentation, the sectors being portions of the presentation, the sectors being of substantially the same size;

defining in the memory a free memory list, the free memory list exclusively defining deallocated memory sectors the free memory list being configured to vary in size over time;

selecting a portion of the presentation for deletion, the portion being smaller than the entire presentation, the beginning of the portion marked with a first deletion point and the end of the portion being marked with a second deletion point;

mapping the selected portion that is marked by the first deletion point and the second deletion point to one or more of the sectors within the first file;

deallocating the one or more mapped sectors from the file and appending the deallocated one or more mapped sectors of the file to the free memory list;

amending the first file to link the remaining sectors of the file together so that the presentation can be presented to the user continuously and without substantially any time discontinuities.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first file is an audio file or a video file.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the memory is a memory of a personal video recorder.