RU2383951C2 - Method and device for playing back optical disc - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: physics; computer engineering.

SUBSTANCE: method of playing back optical disc comprises the following steps: obtaining information describing content which should be played back, creation of a playback file system in accordance with the said information. Said information can be accessed and played back using a single application program interface in accordance with the said playback file system. Content which should be played back contains optical disc content and extended content stored on other storage media (for example networks).

EFFECT: easier operation of the playback system by separating the playback mechanism from specific recording media.

16 cl, 5 dwg

Description

Technical field

The present invention relates to methods for reproducing an optical disc, in particular to a method and apparatus for reproducing those optical discs whose contents are expanded by network or other methods.

With the development of optical storage methods, an optical disc can not only store a ton of information, but also can provide a method and a window for obtaining more information, for example, optical discs in eDVD format (advanced DVD, eDVD) and Blue-Ray optical disc format, etc. d. These optical disc formats may break the limitation that earlier optical disc formats only support playback of content stored on optical discs, and may additionally support content (set of contents) that relates to optical discs but is not stored on them ( e.g. on networks), i.e. extended content. For example, when an optical disc player plays an optical disc, in addition to reproducing contents on the optical disc, information related to the contents of the optical disc or some scenario can be obtained from networks via network link information provided in the optical disc, and can be reproduced in addition, content stored on other local storage media (e.g., U disk, hard disk, memory card, etc.) that relates to the contents of the optical disk can also reproduce based on the link information provided on the optical disc. These advanced-format optical disc formats can bring users an unheard of audiovisual experience.

In these optical disc formats with extended contents of the optical disc, the playback mechanism of the optical disc player is required not only for reproducing content stored in the optical disc, but also for accessing and reproducing, respectively, content from other information sources (in particular network), related to the contents of the optical disc. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an optical disc reproducing apparatus 100 of the prior art. The playback device 100 can not only play back content stored on optical disks and other local storage media, but also access network servers to receive content related to the contents of the optical disk for playback.

When the reproducing apparatus 100 plays an optical disc, content stored in the optical disc can be reproduced directly by the reproducing mechanism 110 according to the respective application programming interfaces (APIs). As for the content related to the contents of the optical disk that is stored in network servers or other local storage media, the reproducing engine 110 issues, based on these various storage addresses of the contents and storage methods, corresponding API commands and commands (for example, using basic bidirectional commands channel based on TCP / IP) to access relevant addresses in order to reproduce this content. Buffer manager 130 may manage buffer 120 to play extended content.

A conventional optical disc reproducing apparatus and methods for reproducing optical discs must access and reproduce, using various commands and various methods, the contents of various storage media. The reproducing mechanism 110 must identify the storage information of this content, and at the same time, various manipulation methods need to be selected according to different content formats. In addition, the contents stored on the optical discs and the expanded contents stored on other storage media that relate to the contents of the optical disc can only be processed individually by the optical disc reproducer, and it is very difficult to use them as a whole, which leads to a specific the complexity of design / production of a reproduction mechanism.

If the expanded content, in particular the expanded content on the networks, contains a new media format or relates to a new network protocol, the playback engine 110 must also add a new application programming interface or upgrade an existing version of the method, then the contents of the respective formats can be reproduced.

Therefore, it is required to provide a method and apparatus for reproducing an optical disc in order to facilitate reproduction of the contents of the optical disc and the expanded contents.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The objective of the invention is to create a method and device for reproducing an optical disc in order to overcome the disadvantages of the methods of the prior art.

The optical disc reproducing method provided by the present invention comprises the steps of: extracting content description information to be reproduced; generating a file system for reproducing based on said description information, wherein a file system for reproducing is created based on a file system of directories on storage media of the content to be reproduced; the subsequent reproduction of the content to be reproduced according to the file system of reproduction. Moreover, said content to be reproduced contains content stored on optical discs and extended contents of the optical disc stored on other storage media (e.g., networks). At the same time, said description information contains storage information of said content to be reproduced. The method further comprises the steps of retrieving playback software resource information that reproduces said content to be reproduced, and generating said playback file system based on the playback software resource information and description information of the resources to be reproduced. The content to be reproduced is accessed and reproduced using a single application software interface according to the playback file system.

An optical disc reproducing apparatus provided by the present invention comprises: an extraction apparatus for extracting content description information to be reproduced, wherein the description information comprises storage information of said content to be reproduced. The optical disc reproducing apparatus further comprises a forming apparatus for generating a reproducing file system based on said description information, the reproducing file system corresponds to a file system of directories in the storage media of said content to be reproduced. The optical disc reproducing apparatus also comprises a reproducing mechanism for reproducing said content to be reproduced according to said reproducing file system. Said retrieval device is also used to retrieve information of the reproduction software resources required to reproduce said content to be reproduced, including storage information, for example, buffer memory information. Said forming device is also used to form said reproducing file system based on said description information and said reproduction software resource information. Said reproduction mechanism accesses and reproduces content to be reproduced by means of one application program interface according to said reproduction file system.

According to the present method and device for reproducing an optical disc, the process of reproducing content to be reproduced by the optical disc mechanism is simplified, contents on various storage media can be accessed and reproduced through a single application software interface. When the contents of a new format of an optical disc are to be reproduced, or other new storage media (media) appear, there is no need to upgrade the reproducing mechanism of the optical disc, it is only necessary to expand some functional modules of the reproducing mechanism according to the present invention, an upgrade of the entire reproducing apparatus can be achieved optical discs, so the complexity of designing and implementing a playback mechanism is significant simplified.

Other objectives and advantages of the present invention should be apparent from the following description and claims with reference to the accompanying drawings, and a more complete understanding of the present invention can be achieved.

Description of accompanying drawings

The present invention is illustrated in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram of an optical disc reproducing apparatus 100 according to the prior art;

2 is a block diagram of an optical disc reproducing apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 3 is a flowchart of a method for reproducing optical discs according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a diagram of a directory structure of a playback file system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a schematic diagram of links of a playback file system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The same reference numerals represent identical, similar, or corresponding features and functions in all accompanying drawings.

Specific Embodiments

2 is a block diagram of an optical disc reproducing apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The device 200 comprises an extraction device 210, a forming device 220, and a reproducing mechanism 230.

An extractor 210 is used to extract a description of the content information to be reproduced. The content to be reproduced contains content to be reproduced stored on the optical discs, and extended content related to the content to be reproduced on the optical discs. Extended content contains content stored on networks for which reference addresses are provided on optical disks, and may also contain content stored on other local storage media (e.g., hard disk, U disk, etc.) for which links are provided on optical discs, such as certain texts, photographs, movies, audio and video segments, etc. The description information retrieved by the extraction device 210 comprises storage information (memory information) of the aforementioned content to be reproduced, for example, a memory address of the content to be reproduced on optical disks or other local storage media, or a buffer address of the contents, which must be played, which are downloaded from networks, in the buffer. As for the expanded content from the network, it must first be loaded into the buffer of the optical disc playback device in order to realize smooth (“seamless”) playback, this network content receives the buffering address in the buffer.

If the content to be played back contains network content, some application program resources supporting playback of network content must be loaded into the buffer memory of the optical disc player and obtain corresponding buffer memory addresses to ensure smooth playback of network content. Therefore, in such cases, the extraction device 210 is also used to extract information from the playback software resources supporting the reproduction of content to be reproduced, for example, storage information of the application program, including the memory address in the networks or the buffer memory address in the buffer of the optical playback device drives.

The forming device 220 is used to generate a file system for playback with information describing the content to be reproduced by the extraction device 210. Since the file system of directories (file system with directories) in the storage medium contains information describing the content to be reproduced, the device 220 formation can generate, based on the file system of directories in the storage medium of the content that must be played, for example, a file system of directories in an optical disc, contents of an optical disc, etc. Typically, the initial playback file system is set by displaying or converting, based on the file system, the catalogs of contents to be reproduced stored in the optical disk, then description information of the extended content or the corresponding file system catalogs is added to the installed file system playback, and thus the combined file system a system for reproducing content to be reproduced is installed in the device ystve reproducing optical disks, wherein said file system comprises the description information (e.g., information storage, etc.) of content to be played on different storage mediums.

If the content to be reproduced contains the contents of the network link, the generating device 220 must also add information about the playback resources (eg, application programs, etc.) required to play the corresponding network content to be reproduced in the file system playback, that is, to display information about the storage of application programs in the file system playback so that the relevant directories of the file system playback also contains These are links to the memory / buffer addresses of these applications. The establishment of such a file system playback allows you to access and play in a single way the content that must be reproduced on optical discs and advanced content and resources required for playback.

As for the content to be buffered by the buffer, if the mentioned content is available in the buffer and has buffer memory addresses, the forming device 220 will add this information to the installed file playback system. If the content receives the address of the buffer memory only when it is loaded during playback, the device 220 formation will continuously update the installed file system playback during playback of the optical disk. Therefore, the device 200 may also comprise a buffer (not shown in the drawings) for buffering content to be buffered, and corresponding playback applications.

The reproducing mechanism 230 is used to reproduce the content to be reproduced on the optical disc according to the file system of reproduction described above, and it is not necessary to access the file system of directories in the optical disc. The playback engine 230, using only one program application program interface, can access and “smoothly” reproduce the contents of the reproduction of the optical disc and the expanded contents of the optical disc based on information provided by said file system reproduction.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method for reproducing optical discs according to an embodiment of the present invention. After the optical disc is inserted into the reproducing apparatus, the optical disc reproducing apparatus firstly reads a catalog file stored in the optical disc, the catalog file containing some information describing the contents to be reproduced and information about corresponding software resources playback, such as storage information, etc. (step S305). The purpose of step S305 is to extract content description information to be reproduced, since a file system of directories in a storage medium of content to be reproduced contains information of description of content to be reproduced, this embodiment may suitably obtain content description information to be reproduced according to a directory file system in a storage medium of the content to be reproduced. Of course, other conventional methods for retrieving content description information to be reproduced are also feasible.

Then, the initial playback file system is generated based on the file system of the contents of the playback of the inserted optical disc (step S310). Based on the directory file of the optical disk, an initial playback file system is generated by display. A detailed description of the process of forming a file system playback is given below with reference to figure 4.

The initial playback file system comprises a directory file system formed by a display that has a file structure with directories corresponding to the contents to be reproduced stored in the optical disk. For example, the optical disc file system contains the “video transfer subdirectory (VIDEO_TS)” and the “extended optical disc content subdirectory (DVD_ENAV)”, respectively, the playback file system also contains these two subdirectories. The link information of the extended content to be reproduced, which is a memory path indicating the extended content to be reproduced, is also included in subdirectories of the initial playback file system. If playback of the extended content to be reproduced requires support for applications stored in the optical disk, information about the memory (storage) of these applications should also be mapped to relevant directories of the playback file system.

Then, extended content description information in other local storage media is extracted and added to the playback file system (step S320). Since some description information, for example, title, subject, some keywords, etc., of contents stored in the optical disc was determined and stored in the optical disc during the production of the optical disc, the corresponding content to be reproduced may be easily found in other local storage media based on this information only. Description information (e.g., memory address) of the expanded content in other local storage media is mapped to the installed playback file system so that the playback file system contains reference information indicating extended playback content in other local storage media (e.g., memory addresses in other local storage media environments).

Then, the playback file system is updated based on the description information of the expanded content in the networks (step S330). Typically, expanded content on networks and related playback resources (e.g., application programs for playing audio and video and other applications required for network playback) must be loaded in advance into the buffer memory of the optical disc player and then played back to ensure smooth playback. for some scenario, for example, an optical disk provides the addresses of a network server through which some network advanced content can be Chenoa shaped link URL (e.g., www.dvd_2.com.cn/video.exe); network enhanced content and corresponding playback resources can be accessed and loaded for buffering according to the mentioned URL link information, thus network advanced content and playback resources have, in addition to the network memory address information, corresponding buffer memory addresses after loading.

Updating the playback file system based on the description information of the downloaded network advanced content and playback resources should add this corresponding information, including buffer memory information, to the installed playback file system according to the directory structure. The playback file system contains reference information indicating the address when buffering downloaded contents in the buffer memory device, for example, file: // buffer: / Offset = offset & Length = length, in which buffer indicates that the content is present in the buffer memory device, the starting address is offset offset, and the length is length. Similarly, the playback file system may also contain description information pointing directly to application resources in the buffer memory device. Step S330 may also be performed during playback.

Finally, the optical disc is reproduced according to the installed playback file system (step S340). According to a playback file system, content to be reproduced is reproduced with a single application programming interface. By accessing the link in the playback file system dvd: // dvdrom: /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO, for example, the reader can get the path of the file VIDEO_TS.IFO (stored in the VIDEO_TS directory of the DVD optical disc), the player can access and play the file accordingly the way. The establishment of a playback file system separates the playback mechanism from specific storage media, the playback mechanism does not need to exclusively use different access methods to reproduce content on different storage media, while the operation of the playback system is simplified.

It should be clarified that network advanced content stored on network servers can not only be loaded before playback, but also can be loaded into a buffer or other local storage media during playback. After the download is completed, the player maps the buffer addresses of this downloaded network playback content to the playback file system so that the player can access this expanded content by referencing the buffer addresses provided in the playback file system.

After the optical disc has finished playing, the player may refuse the file system for playback. Since the playback file system is dynamically generated while the optical disc is inserted, the player may refuse the playback file system automatically after playback is completed. Considering that the same optical disc can be played again and again, however, the file system can be stored in other local storage media during playback or after playback is completed, and thus there is no need to set the file system for playback when playing one of the same optical disc the next time, the optical disc can only be played back by invoking the existing playback file system.

FIG. 4 illustrates a configuration diagram of a directory structure of a playback file system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The player sets up the initial playback file system based on the file system of the content directories in the optical disc. It is assumed that the structure of the content reproduction directories in the optical disk contains a root directory, below which there are two subdirectories “a subdirectory of the extended contents of the optical disk” and a “subdirectory of video transmission”, and the “subdirectory of the extended contents of the optical disk” also has second level subdirectories, namely, “Font subdirectory” and “page number subdirectory”, with all files stored in the appropriate directories. For example, there are startup files in the "extended optical disc contents subdirectory" of the optical disc and video transfer files in the "video transfer subdirectory".

Since the directory structure of the playback file system corresponds to that of the optical disk, mapping the entire directory structure of the optical disk to the playback file system can make the directory structure of the playback system identical to that on the optical disk. From Fig. 4 it can be seen that the directory structure of the playback file system also contains a root directory, according to which there is a “subdirectory of the extended contents of the optical disc” and a “subdirectory of video transmission”, under the “subdirectory of the extended contents of the optical disc” there is also a “subdirectory of fonts” and "Subdirectory of page number." Optical disc description information is stored in these relevant subdirectories, for example, launch file description information, i.e. storage information for this startup file is stored in a “subdirectory of the extended contents of the optical disc” of the playback file system.

The file playback system contains, in addition to directories corresponding to the directory structure of the optical disk, directories corresponding to the directory structure of other local storage media. When the relevant contents of the optical disc are searched in other local storage media by the player, it is necessary to map the directory structures of the other local storage media to the file system. As can be seen from figure 4, directories that are not in the directory structure of the initial file system of playback, for example, the "audio subdirectory" must be added to the directory structure of the file system of playback, the description information of the audio files is stored in the "audio subdirectory". For existing directories, such as the “extended optical disk content subdirectory”, “font subdirectory” and “page number subdirectory”, you only need to display the file paths (for example, Chinese font file, index file, segment file, page number file, etc.) e.) “below” these directories in other local storage media to the relevant directories in the file system of the reproduction. The paths to the storage location of these files are stored in the relevant subdirectories of the playback file system. If there is the same file in the same subdirectory, for example, there is already description information for the “Chinese font file” in the “font subdirectory”, the initial information should be replaced by the description information for the new file “Chinese font file” in other local storage media . In this way, the filesystems of the playback file system directories are fully installed.

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of links of a file system for reproducing according to an embodiment of the present invention, and also explains link forms stored in a file system for reproducing that can be reproduced by links. The playback file system may be linked based on the configuration URI, for example, the “file: //” configuration URI indicates that this content is some files that can be extracted from the local memory space; URI "http: //" indicates that this content is located on a network server, and thus this content can be retrieved in accordance with the HTTP protocol; “Dvd: //” indicates that this content is located in the optical disc, so optical drive-specific application programming interfaces can be used to extract this content. For device identifiers (for example, buffer: / buffer, hd: / hard disk, flash: / flash memory) for the URI “file: //”, it can be physically identified in which type of storage medium the playback contents are stored.

As shown in FIG. 5, it is not necessary to first load the contents from the optical disk into the buffer, it is only necessary to display them under the “video transfer subdirectory” and the “extended optical disk subdirectory” based on the configuration URI (defining a method for representing the location of information). For example, the description information of the video transfer file is stored in the form “dvd: // dvdrom: /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO”, indicating that the video file of the optical disc is saved under the dvdrom optical disc video transfer subdirectory and the file name is VIDEO_TS.IFO. Another example, the startup file description information is stored in the “compact extended content subdirectory” in the form “dvd: // dvdrom: /VIDEO_TS/STARTUP.MLS”, indicating that the startup file is saved under the dvdrom optical disc video transfer subdirectory and the file name is STARTUP .MLS.

Although there is no need to load the contents of the playback of the optical disc, the contents of the playback in some optical discs may be pre-loaded into the buffer, this part of the content may represent some images, texts or segments of audio and video, etc., this should avoid frequent transitions (jumps) player when it plays this content. This part of the downloaded content should be displayed under the "extended optical disk contents subdirectory", it can be represented in the following form: file: // buffer: / Offset = offset & Length = length, indicating that this file is stored in the buffer, the buffer starting address is offset, and the length is length.

Playback content from other local storage media (media) should not be downloaded, playback content description information can be displayed directly under the "extended optical disc contents subdirectory" according to the form of the configuration URI file. There is a picture file related to the contents of the optical disk stored in other local storage media, for example, this image exists in the form file: // hd: /disc_a/file.jpg in the playback file system. This indicates that this picture is saved under the disc_a directory of the hard disk, the file name is “file.jpg”.

For content from a network server, playback content or application resources must first be loaded into a buffer, the description information of the downloaded content can be displayed under the "extended optical disk contents subdirectory" according to the form of the configuration URI file, for example, description information of the downloaded text file is saved in the form file: // buffer: / Offset = 0 × 3000 & Lenght = 0 × 1200. This indicates that this text file is saved in the buffer, the start address is 0 × 3000, and the length is 0 × 1200. Another example, the description information for the downloaded Chinese font file is located under the “font subdirectory” and is saved in the form file: // buffer: / Offset = 0 × 0000 & Length = 0 × 1000. This indicates that this Chinese font file is saved in the buffer, the starting address is 0x0000, and the length is 0 × 1000. The Chinese font file may also be presented not in the form of a configuration URI file, it may directly indicate the buffer address and the length of the contents of the loaded content in the buffer in the form of pointers.

The present invention entirely maps content in the optical disk and outside the optical disk to the file system in the form of links, the playback mechanism can work on the file system playback and does not have to manage various sources of content directly. Thus, there is no need to make many changes regarding the structure of the reproduction mechanism, and the complexity of designing and manufacturing the reproduction mechanism is greatly reduced. More importantly, when new protocols and media formats are introduced, there is no need to change the playback mechanism of an optical disk, it only needs to be modernized and expanded the corresponding software resources of the extraction device and the forming device to manipulate new protocols and media, which improves the generality and extensibility of everything playback devices.

The apparatus and method formulated by the present embodiment are suitable for various optical disc formats such as eDVD format and Blue-ray optical disc format, etc.

Although the present invention has been described in relation to specific embodiments, various alternatives, modifications, and changes made as described above should be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, such alternatives, modifications and changes falling within the scope and form of the appended claims should be embraced by the present invention.

Claims (16)

1. A method of reproducing an optical disc, comprising the steps of:
(a) obtaining information describing the content to be reproduced;
(b) creating a playback file system according to the description information and
(c) access and reproduction of said content to be reproduced by a single application program interface according to said reproduction file system. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said content to be reproduced comprises content to be reproduced on the network by a linking method provided by said optical disc. 3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:
storing in the buffer of the mentioned content to be played. 4. The method according to claim 1 or 3, wherein said information describing the content to be reproduced comprises information storing said content to be reproduced. 5. The method according to claim 4, in which said information describing the content to be reproduced contains addresses in the buffer memory of said content to be reproduced. 6. The method according to claim 1, in which step (a) comprises the step of obtaining said description information according to a file system of directories of said content to be reproduced in a storage medium. 7. The method according to claim 1, in which step (a) further comprises the step of obtaining resource information of the reproduction software for reproducing said content to be reproduced, step (b) further comprises the step of creating said reproduction file system according to said description information and said reproduction software resource information. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein said reproduction software resource information comprises reproduction software resource storage information. 9. The method according to claim 1, wherein said playback file system is created according to a file system of directories of said content to be reproduced in a storage medium. 10. An optical disc reproducing apparatus, comprising:
obtaining means for obtaining information describing the content to be reproduced;
creation means for creating a playback file system according to the description information and
a playback mechanism for accessing and reproducing said content to be reproduced by a single application program interface according to said playback file system. 11. The device according to claim 10, further comprising
a buffer memory device for storing in the buffer of said content to be reproduced. 12. The device of claim 10, wherein said content to be reproduced comprises content to be reproduced stored on a network. 13. The device according to claim 11, wherein said description information comprises information for storing content to be reproduced. 14. The device according to item 13, in which the said storage information contains information of the buffer memory. 15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said obtaining means is also used to obtain information of a reproduction software resource for reproducing said content to be reproduced, and said creating means creates said reproduction file system according to the obtained reproduction software resource information and said content description information to be reproduced. 16. The device according to clause 15, in which the resource information of the playback software contains information on the buffer memory of the playback resource.

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