HK1113250B - Method of reproducing interactive graphics data - Google Patents

Description

Method for reproducing data containing interactive graphics

This application is a divisional application of a patent application entitled "information storage medium containing interactive graphics stream and reproducing method and apparatus therefor" filed as 7/2/2005, application No. 200510007628.5.

Technical Field

The present invention relates to reproducing audio/video (AV) data, and more particularly, to an information storage medium including an interactive graphics stream capable of changing a reproduction state of AV data, and a reproducing method and apparatus using the interactive graphics stream capable of changing the reproduction state of AV data.

Background

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing that a plurality of streams are multiplexed into a main stream.

Referring to fig. 1, a main stream 110 of multimedia images is formed by multiplexing a video stream 102, an audio stream 104, a presentation graphic stream 106 providing subtitles, and an interactive graphic stream 108 providing a menu containing buttons for interaction with a user. The interactive graphics stream 108 includes a plurality of segments.

Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the structure of a display set (display set) included in the interactive graphics stream 108.

Referring to FIG. 2, the interactive graphics stream 108 is formed with a plurality of display sets, each of which includes a plurality of segments. Each segment forming the display set will now be explained. An Interactive Composition Segment (ICS)210 defines display information for an "interactive display" in the interactive graphics stream 108. The "interactive display" is used as a button for providing a graphic element, for example, corresponding to a command. A Palette Definition Segment (PDS)220 is used as a definition palette that provides output colors or transparency that should be applied to pixel values in a graphics layer for the interactive graphics stream 108. There may be a plurality of Object Definition Segments (ODSs) 230-1 through 230-n, which are actual graphics data in the interactive graphics stream 108. The end segment 240 is used to indicate the end of the display set.

The interactive graphic stream 108 is reproduced together with the AV stream. When a menu is displayed on the screen, in order to navigate the menu while an AV stream is reproduced, the reproduction of AV data continues even during the reproduction of an interactive graphic stream corresponding to the menu. Thus, some scenes of the movie may be missed during menu navigation, or important scenes may be missed if the menu box occupies a large portion of the screen.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention provides an information storage medium containing an interactive graphics stream that can change a reproduction state of AV data when menu navigation is performed, and a reproducing method and apparatus using the same.

Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information storage medium including: AV data; presentation graphic data including subtitle information corresponding to the AV data; and interactive graphic data including the menu data, wherein the interactive graphic data further includes a reproduction state change navigation command for changing a reproduction state of the AV data and/or the presentation graphic data.

The interactive graphic data may include at least one display set formed of a plurality of segments, the segments may include interactive composition segments including composition information of the menu data, and the interactive composition segments may include reproduction state change navigation commands. The reproduction state change navigation command may be executed before the menu is displayed.

The user command corresponding to the interactive graphic data may control a reproduction state of the AV data and/or the presentation graphic data.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of reproducing interactive graphic data including menu data, the method including: receiving a reproduction command of the interactive graphic data during reproduction of the AV data; and changing a reproduction state of the AV data.

A reproduction state change navigation command, which may be included in the interactive graphic data to change a reproduction state of the AV data, may be performed before changing the reproduction state of the AV data. The reproduction state change navigation command may be a command to change the reproduction state of the AV data to a "still" state.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a reproducing apparatus including: an object buffer for receiving interactive graphic data including menu data; and a graphic controller for controlling a reproduction state of the received interactive graphic data, wherein the interactive graphic data includes a reproduction state change navigation command for changing a reproduction state of the AV data and/or the presentation graphic data.

Drawings

These and/or other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:

fig. 1 is a diagram showing a plurality of streams multiplexed into a main stream;

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the structure of display sets in an interactive graphics stream;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a structure of an Interactive Composition Segment (ICS) in an interactive graphics stream designed to implement a menu;

fig. 4 is a diagram showing an effective display period of a popup menu;

fig. 5 is a diagram showing an effective display period of a menu that is always displayed.

Fig. 6 is a diagram showing states that an AV presentation can have when the presentation engine is activated.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the structure of an ICS to which an advance command block is added according to an embodiment of the present invention implementing a temporary stop function. A pre-command block is added when a popup menu is prepared so that the reproduction state of AV data can be controlled.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the structure of an ICS to which a "still" command is assigned in a menu screen according to another embodiment of the present invention implementing a temporary stop function.

Fig. 9 is a diagram showing a reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention that reproduces an interactive graphics stream.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. Hereinafter, the embodiments are described to explain the present invention by referring to the figures.

Referring to fig. 3, an Interactive Composition Segment (ICS) includes a plurality of page structures. The ICS is designed to implement a plurality of menu pages, or other forms of graphical user interface, during active display of the display set to which the ICS belongs. A page is a set of buttons forming one menu, which is distinguished from other pages by page _ id. That is, one ICS includes a plurality of pages. The pop-up menu (pop-up menu) and the always-on menu (always-on menu) have the same ICS structure, and an attribute indicating whether the menu implemented by the ICS is the pop-up menu or the always-on menu is written in the clip description attribute.

Fig. 4 is a diagram showing an effective display period of the popup menu.

Even when the AV data reaches the presentation time stamp of Epoch Start (Start of new Epoch of ICS) of the ICS at the time point at which it is reproduced, the pop-up menu is not displayed on the screen, and the pop-up menu is displayed on the screen only when a user operation such as "PopUp _ on ()" for the user to select the display menu is selected. The term "period" will be explained later. The menu disappears in response to a user operation such as "PopUP _ off ()" or at the composition _ time _ out _ pts time point of the ICS. The term composition _ time _ out _ pts describes the end time of the interactive display in a period. At the end time, the interactive display is no longer active and will therefore no longer be displayed. Therefore, the time interval from the PTS time point of the ICS to the composition _ time _ out _ PTS time point, which is indicated by reference numeral 410, is the effective display period of the PopUp menu, and the time during which the menu screen is actually displayed on the screen between PopUp _ on () and PopUp _ off () within the effective display period is the interactive display period.

Here, the interactive display period is an effective time interval during which the PopUp menu can be displayed, that is, a time interval at which user operations by the users PopUp _ on () and PopUp _ off () can be applied. The interactive display period is a time interval during which the menu is actually displayed on the screen.

The interactive graphics data stream forms one or more units, each referred to as an epoch in view of the mode of operation of the interactive graphics decoder. All interactive graphics objects are decoded during an epoch and stored continuously in an object buffer in an interactive graphics decoder.

That is, repeated use of the decoded interactive graphic object during a period of time is possible. Therefore, unless the next period data is input, the data is continuously maintained in the decoder, and at the time when the current period ends and the next period starts, all buffers in the decoder are reset and all data stored in the object buffer disappears.

Each clip in a presentation set is written in a Packetized Elementary Stream (PES), which is a packet unit of an MPEG-2 transport stream. Here, decoding of the display set is performed for a period corresponding to a Decoding Time Stamp (DTS) contained in the PES packet, and output of the packet on the screen starts at a PTS time. The output completion time of the display set is determined by the value in the composition _ time _ out _ pts field recorded in the ICS.

Fig. 5 is a diagram showing an effective display period of a menu that is always displayed.

When the reproduction time point of the AV data becomes the PTS of Epoch Start of the ICS, the first page of the always-on menu is displayed on the screen, and the always-on menu automatically disappears at the composition _ time _ out _ PTS time point of the ICS. Therefore, the time interval from the PTS time point of the ICS to the composition _ time _ out _ PTS time point, which is indicated by reference numeral 510, is the effective display period of the menu that is always displayed, and the effective display period is the same as the interactive display period when the menu is actually displayed on the screen.

As described above with reference to fig. 4 and 5, the difference between the popup menu and the always-on menu is that the popup menu is displayed on the screen during the active display period of the period set by the user operation, while the always-on menu is automatically displayed at the PTS time point of the ICS. Each of these menus is displayed together with reproduction of AV data. In general, reproduction of AV data continues even when a menu is displayed. Accordingly, the menu frame is displayed during reproduction of the AV data, and if the user performs menu navigation during reproduction of the AV data, a scene cannot be correctly viewed because of a portion hidden by the menu frame, or a movie scene being played during menu navigation may be missed.

Fig. 6 is a diagram showing states that an AV presentation can have when the presentation engine is activated.

Referring to fig. 6, in the AV presentation, there are states such as "Play (Play)", "Trick Play (Trick Play)", and "Still (Still)". "play" indicates a state in which reproduction is performed at a normal speed, i.e., x1.0(1 × speed), and "trick play" indicates a state in which reproduction is performed at a speed lower or higher than x1.0 speed. "still" indicates that the last scene was continuously displayed on the screen and reproduction was performed at x0. speed. Thus, in the "still" state, reproduction of video and audio data is temporarily stopped but the navigation system is continuously operated. The "quiescent" state is different from the Pause (Pause) "state. In the "pause" state, all operations including the operation of the navigation system are stopped.

Therefore, in the present invention, a navigation command "still" that enables a user to change the state of an AV presentation from "play" to "still" is defined so that the user does not miss a movie scene when a menu is displayed during reproduction of AV data. That is, according to the intention of the content manufacturer, a "still" navigation command is made to be used so that the reproduction of AV data can be temporarily stopped when a menu is reproduced.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the structure of an ICS to which an advance command block is added according to an embodiment of the present invention implementing a temporary stop function. A pre-command block is added when a popup menu is prepared so that the reproduction state of AV data can be controlled.

Referring to fig. 7, it can be seen that the pre-command block is added to the page structure data area. The pre-command block contains a navigation command that should be executed before the page structure data containing the pre-command block is displayed on the screen. If the manufacturer intends that the reproduction of the AV data is continued when the pop-up menu page defined by the ICS is executed by the user, the manufacturer may choose not to include the "still" command in the pre-command block. In addition, if the designer intends to temporarily stop the reproduction of the AV data, the manufacturer may include a "still" command in the pre-command block so that the reproduction of the AV data can be temporarily stopped before the menu page is displayed.

Fig. 8 is a diagram showing the structure of an ICS to which a "still" command is assigned in a menu screen according to another embodiment of the present invention implementing a temporary stop function.

Referring to fig. 8, in this embodiment, a manufacturer may provide a menu screen displayed on the screen, in which a "still" command is assigned to a predetermined button, so that the reproduction state of AV may be changed to a temporary stop state according to a user selection.

As described above, when the popup menu or the always-displayed menu is executed, the reproduction state of the AV data can be controlled according to the manufacturer's intention by using the "still" navigation command that changes the state of the AV presentation from "play" to "still".

Fig. 9 is a diagram showing a reproducing apparatus that reproduces an interactive graphic stream according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 9, a block diagram of an interactive graphic decoder of a reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention is provided. In the MPEG-2TS packet, which is a main stream read out from a storage medium, only the interactive graphics stream is selectively taken and transferred to the transmission buffer 904, and then transmitted to the interactive graphics decoder. In the encoded data buffer 906, data to be decoded is stored. In the stream graphic processor 908, data is decoded and object data for button images is transmitted to an object buffer 910, and composition information is transmitted to a composition buffer 912 so that screen output of an interactive graphic stream is controlled.

When a PTS time corresponding to the start of screen output of the interactive graphics stream is reached, the composition buffer 912 controls the graphics controller 914 so that an image to be output on the current screen is determined and transmitted from the object buffer 910 to the graphics layer 916, and color information is transmitted to the color lookup table 918 to form the interactive graphics stream on the screen. In addition, the graphic controller 914 receives an input from the user and changes the button state in response to a positional movement of the button or a selection of the button, and indicates the result output on the screen.

Meanwhile, the embodiment of the interactive graphics stream reproducing method described above may be written as a computer program. The code and code segments forming the program can be easily inferred by a computer programmer in the art. The program may be stored in an information storage medium, and read and executed by a computer so that the method is implemented. Examples of the information storage medium include magnetic storage media, optical recording media, and storage media such as carrier waves.

The embodiments set forth in this description should be considered in a descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. Therefore, the scope of the invention is defined not by the detailed description but by the appended claims, and all differences within the scope will be construed as being included in the present invention.

According to the present invention described above, a method of controlling an AV presentation state, i.e., a state of a presentation engine when a popup menu or an always-on menu is displayed, is provided. Accordingly, the present invention enables a manufacturer or a user to maintain or temporarily stop reproduction of AV data when a menu is reproduced.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in this embodiment without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.

Claims (4)

1. A method of reproducing interactive graphic data recorded in an information storage medium, the method comprising the steps of:

reading AV data from the information storage medium and reproducing the read AV data;

reading interactive graphic data from the information storage medium, wherein the interactive graphic data includes an interactive composition segment to implement at least one pop-up menu page including at least one button containing at least one navigation command;

receiving a first command during reproduction of AV data, the first command instructing to reproduce interactive graphic data;

outputting a pop-up menu page on the AV data in response to the received first command;

changing a reproduction state of the AV data in response to a predetermined navigation command among the at least one navigation command included in the predetermined button when a user activates the predetermined button among the at least one button included in the at least one pop-up menu page,

wherein when the predetermined navigation command is a command to change a reproduction state of the AV data to a still state, the changed reproduction state of the AV data is the still state,

wherein the still state indicates that the last scene of the AV data is continuously displayed and the navigation function is continuously operated.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined navigation command to change the reproduction state of the AV data is performed before the reproduction state of the AV data is changed.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein changing the reproduction state of the AV data comprises displaying menu data containing user interactive commands to change the reproduction state of the AV data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the user interaction command is the predetermined navigation command.