Data management device and method for managing recording medium

• US 20070174545A1
• Filed: 10/11/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Okada, Shunji, Ito, Ryogo
• Granted Patent: US 8,275,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/112
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/70 of video data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0667 at data level, e.g. file, record or object virtualisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/068 Hybrid storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

A data management device manages a recording medium, on which a partition table having information regarding a partition is recorded and on which a plurality of drives are assigned using partition description, by referring to the partition table. The plurality of drives include a recording drive on which a basic playback unit included in a file is recorded and a management drive on which a property file having access information for the basic playback unit is recorded. The data management device includes an accessing section for accessing the basic playback unit included in the file recorded on the recording drive by referring to the property file recorded on the management drive.

Claims

1. A data management device for managing a recording medium recorded with a partition table having information regarding a partition, and on which a plurality of drives are assigned using a partition description by referring to the partition table, the plurality of drives including a recording drive recorded with a basic playback unit included in a file and a management drive recorded with a property file having access information for the basic playback unit, the data management device comprising:

an accessing section for accessing the basic playback unit recorded on the recording drive by referring to the property file recorded on the management drive.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein a thumbnail file for the basic playback unit is further recorded on the management drive.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the file corresponds to a video/audio stream data file, and wherein the basic playback unit corresponds to a chapter.

4. The device according to claim 1, wherein a drive letter is assigned for a removable semiconductor memory using the partition description.

5. A data management device for managing a recording medium recorded with a partition table having information regarding a partition, and on which a basic partition and an extended partition are formed using a partition description, by referring to the partition table, the basic partition having recorded therein a property file having access information for a basic playback unit included in a file recorded on the extended partition, the data management device comprising:

a mapping section for assigning a logical sector address to the recording medium connected via a network;

a network address conversion section for converting address data assigned as the logical sector address into a network address of the recording medium connected via the network; and

a chapter address conversion section for converting the access information indicated by the property file into a name of the file and for accessing the basic playback unit.

6. A data management device for managing a recording medium that includes a basic partition table holding a start address of a partition and a size of the partition and an extended partition table according to a new method where a storage area for the start address and the partition size in the basic partition table is extended, and that is divided into the basic partition formed according to the basic partition table and an extended partition formed according to the extended partition table according to the new method, the data management device comprising:

an index file creating section for locating an index file in the basic partition and registering an index that associates a data file recorded in the extended partition and a storage area of the data file in the index file; and

a data file searching section for searching for the storage area of the data file recorded in the extended partition on the basis of the index file.

7. The device according to claim 6, further comprising:

an editable index file creating section for creating an editable index file in which the indexes of the data files of the same data type are gathered from the indexes included in the index file.

8. The device according to claim 7, further comprising:

an index file editing section for performing an addition operation, a deletion operation, and a sorting operation on the indexes included in the editable index file, wherein

the data file searching section searches for the storage area of the data file according to the order of the indexes in the editable index file.

9. The device according to claim 6, further comprising:

a drive management section for determining, when reading out of the data file is instructed, whether the data file is recorded in the basic partition or in the extended partition based on a drive letter that indicates the location of the data file, and for causing, when the data file is determined to be recorded in the extended partition, the data file searching section to search for the address of the data file.

10. The device according to claim 6, further comprising:

a data file creating unit for creating a data file that is a recording unit of stream data, wherein

the index file creating section sequentially creates the index for the data file constituting the stream data, and sequentially registers the index in the index file.

11. A method for managing a recording medium that includes a basic partition table storing a start address of a partition and a size of the partition and an extended partition table where a storage area for the start address and the partition size in the basic partition table is extended, and that is divided into a basic partition formed according to the basic partition table and an extended partition formed according to the extended partition table, the method comprising:

locating an index file in the basic partition;

recording a data file in the extended partition;

creating an index associating a storage area of the data file recorded in the extended partition and the basic partition; and

registering the index in the index file.

12. A data management device, comprising:

a user operation section; and

an index file synchronizing section for controlling an update operation of an index file that is recorded on a removable nonvolatile memory drive in a first basic partition, and that is used for accessing a video/audio information content data file recorded on a second basic partition to perform a synchronization operation on the index file, wherein

in the synchronization operation, upon receiving a command control signal from the user operation section, the index file synchronizing section converts an I-picture of a compressed movie stream specified by data search information of a video object unit into a reduced-size thumbnail image according to a still image compression format, and writes the thumbnail image data and timestamp data in the index file, and also writes copyright protection attribute data attached to the stream in title attribute data of the index file, whereas when there is no command control signal from the user operation section, the index file synchronizing section writes text time information without the thumbnail image data as the timestamp data in the index file so as to display the text time information on a thumbnail display screen instead of displaying the thumbnail image.