JP2003101957A - Multi-angle reproducing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a reproducing device capable of performing multi-angle reproduction without performing special prior work. SOLUTION: In the case of reproducing a prescribed video clip 3a, the time information of the prescribed video clip 3a is compared with the time information of a plurality of different video clips 3, overlapping video clips 3b having an overlapping section on the prescribed video clip 3a are sequentially read and stored in a buffer memory 6, and at least either the prescribed video clip 3a or an overlapping video clip 3b stored in the buffer memory 6 is also outputted.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multi-angle reproducing device for reproducing a plurality of video clips having overlapping time information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a tape recorder is mainly used as a home-camera integrated video recorder. However, in recent years, a camera-integrated video recorder using a recordable optical disc has appeared, and various playback operations are expected due to the random accessibility of the optical disc.

On the other hand, there is a video reproducing apparatus called DVD as a reproduction-only type optical disk recorder, and mainly packaged video software such as movie software is reproduced. The DVD is equipped with a multi-scene / multi-angle playback function in order to respond to diversification of video expression, and a user can arbitrarily switch and play a plurality of types of images created by a video software creator. . Since multi-scene playback and multi-angle playback are essentially the same type of playback method, both are treated as multi-angle playback here.

A method for realizing such multi-angle reproduction is shown in, for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 09-514148. The above application proposes a bitstream interleaving method in order to enable multi-angle reproduction.

The following is a citation of the disclosure part of the invention from the above application.

In a bit stream reproduction in which two or more data units are selected and reproduced from a bit stream composed of three or more data units continuous on the same time axis, all the data units are sequentially arranged. So that only the selected data unit can be reproduced without time interruption, the data units are arranged in a predetermined order on the same time axis based on the reproduction time length of each of the data units. Interleave the bitstream. The data unit is further divided into minimum read time data units, all the minimum read time data units are sequentially accessed, and only the minimum read time data units of the selected data units are temporally interrupted. So that the bit stream is generated by arranging the minimum read time data units in a predetermined order on the same time axis based on the respective minimum read time, and further reproducing the minimum read time data unit. An interleaving method characterized in that the lengths are the same.

This shows a method of interleaving a plurality of video images to be reproduced on the same time axis to form one bit stream. More briefly described with reference to FIG. 7, bitstreams BS1 and BS3 without interleaving are generated for the video clip C0 and the video clip C4 in the non-multiangle section.
Video clip C1 and Angle 2 video clip C
Video clip C3 of 2 and angle 3 respectively C1
a, C1b ..., C2a, C2b ..., C3a, C
The bit stream BS2 is generated as an interleaved block IB that is divided into a plurality of pieces such as 3b ... In this way, the bit stream BS2 includes a plurality of video clips C1 to C3 having three angles, and multi-angle reproduction is possible by appropriately selecting a desired angle.

[0008]

However, in the domestic camera-integrated video recorder, it is not easy to perform the multi-angle reproduction by applying the above-mentioned conventional interleave method.

In other words, in order to apply the above-mentioned interleaving method, a plurality of video data are prepared in advance, authoring work such as designating a portion for multi-angle is performed, and then the above interleaving method is applied. Need to create a bitstream.
Therefore, when attempting to perform multi-angle playback when there are multiple video materials, first select the video clips to be converted to multi-angle, specify the period to be used for multi-angle in each video clip, and specify each period. There is a need to interleave video clips into a single bitstream.

As described above, in order to perform the multi-angle reproduction by applying the conventional method, there is a problem that the above-mentioned troublesome pre-work is necessary.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above problems, and provides a multi-angle reproducing apparatus which can easily perform multi-angle reproduction without performing a special authoring or interleaving operation on a plurality of video materials. The purpose is to provide.

[0012]

In order to solve this problem, a multi-angle reproducing apparatus according to the first invention of the present application is a medium in which a plurality of video clips having time information are recorded, and a reproducing for reading information from the medium. A drive, an operation control unit that controls the operation of the playback drive, and a buffer memory that temporarily holds a plurality of video clips. When the predetermined video clip is played back, the operation control unit sets the predetermined video clip The time information of other plural video clips is compared, the duplicate video clip having the overlap section of the time information with the predetermined video clip is read out together from the medium and stored in the buffer memory, and at the same time, the predetermined information stored in the buffer memory is stored. At least one of the video clip and the duplicate video clip is output.

A multi-angle reproducing apparatus according to the second invention of the present application comprises a plurality of media in which a plurality of video clips having time information are recorded, and a plurality of reproductions in which a plurality of media are respectively loaded and a plurality of video clips are read. A drive and an operation control unit that controls the operation of a plurality of reproduction drives. When a predetermined video clip in one reproduction drive of the plurality of reproduction drives is reproduced, the operation control unit Of the specified video clip and the time information of a plurality of video clips in another playback drive are compared, and a plurality of playback drives are simultaneously operated for a duplicate video clip having a predetermined video clip and an overlapping section of the time information, and The video clip and the duplicate video clip are read together from their respective playback drives to allow duplicate video It is obtained so as to output at least one of O clip.

In the multi-angle reproducing apparatus of the third invention of the present application, the time information in the first or second invention is recorded time information based on the recording date and time when the video clip is photographed.

A multi-angle reproducing apparatus according to the fourth invention of the present application is the one according to the first or second invention, wherein the recording medium is an optical disk or a magneto-optical disk.

The multi-angle device of the fifth invention of the present application is
In addition to the above-mentioned first or second invention, a display means for displaying at least one of a predetermined video clip and a duplicate video clip is provided.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6.

Here, a plurality of constituent elements having the same name are distinguished by using subscripts such as a and b, and when there is no subscript, the constituent elements are generally represented.

(First Embodiment) The first embodiment of the present invention has the following configuration.

As shown in FIG. 1, the reproduction drive 1 is equipped with an optical disk 2 which is a medium in which signals are recorded.
A plurality of video clips 3 are recorded on the optical disc 2, and time information 4 is recorded on each of the plurality of video clips 3.
(Not shown) is added.

The optical head 5 mounted on the reproduction drive 1 reads the information signals of the plurality of video clips 3 from the optical disc 2, and the read information signals of the plurality of video clips 3 are buffer memory 6 made of semiconductor memory. Sequentially and temporarily stored in.

The information of the video clip 3 read from the reproduction drive 1 is one at a time, but by reading a plurality of video clips 3 and storing them in the buffer memory 6, a plurality of videos can be stored in the buffer memory 6 at the same time. Clip 3 is to be saved. That is, as shown in FIG. 1, the buffer memory 6 is divided into a plurality of areas, and a plurality of different video clips 3 are held in each area. The size of this area does not have to be fixed and can be dynamically changed depending on the number of the plurality of video clips 3 to be read.

Further, one of the video clips 3 stored in the buffer memory 6 is selected by the selector 7 which is a video selection means, and the video signal is output to the display device 8. At this time, a plurality of decoders 9 for decoding the compressed video clip 3 are installed between the selector 7 and the buffer memory 6. Also,
The system controller 10 controls the entire operation.

Now, in order to simplify the description, the decoder 9
Is 2, and the maximum number of the plurality of video clips 3 stored in the buffer memory is also 2. That is,
The description will be made assuming that the value of n in FIG. 1 is 2. Also,
The number of the plurality of video clips 3 recorded on the optical disc 2 is 4, and hereinafter, this is referred to as 3a to 3d.

The present invention is configured as described above, and its operation will be described in detail below.

The video clip 3 is formed as one file in which one scene is taken as a unit from the start of shooting to the temporary stop. Each video clip 3a to 3d has time information 4 based on the shooting date and time.
"a" to "4d" are added to the time information, which is the precise time information in units of 1/30 second, which is the accuracy with which the time of one frame of the video image can be specified. In this embodiment, the time information 4 is such that the recording start time is recorded in the header part of the file and the recording end time is recorded at the end of the file, but the recording method of the time information is limited to the above-mentioned form. Not done.

First, the system controller 10 causes the plurality of video clips 3a to 3 recorded in the optical disc 1 to be recorded.
The time information 4a to 4d given to d is read and compared, and it is determined whether or not there is an overlapping time in the time information.

Here, the time information 4a to 4d of each of the video clips 3a to 3d has a start time of TS1 to TS1.
It is assumed that the information is TS4 and the end times are TE1 to TE4, and the order is TS1 and TS, as shown in FIG.
2, TE2, TE1, TS3, TS4, TE3, TE4
In the order of.

At this time, the system controller 10 reads the video clips 3a to 3d based on the time information 4a to 4d. The operation will be described below. First, the reproduction of the video clip 3a is started. The current time of the video clip 3a being reproduced can be known by adding the reproduction integrated time to the start time TS1. This reproduction operation is performed by storing the signal of the video clip 3a in the buffer memory 6 in advance and reading the signal from the buffer memory 6. The buffer memory 6 has a capacity for storing the signal of the video clip 3 for a sufficient time, and can store, for example, 20 seconds of the video clip 3.

Since the bit rate of the signal read from the optical disk 2 is higher than the bit rate of the video clip 3, when the buffer memory 6 becomes full, the reading from the optical disk 2 is temporarily stopped, and the signal of a fixed capacity is reached. When the vacancy occurs, reading from the disk is started again, and the buffer memory 6 is kept as full as possible.

When the current time of the video clip 3a being reproduced approaches the start time TS2 of the video clip 3b, the system controller 10 starts reading the video clip 3b and stores it in the buffer memory 6. For example, if the current time of the video clip 3a being played is the video clip 3
At 10 seconds before the start time TSb of b, the process moves to the reading of the video clip 3b and the storage in the buffer memory 6 is started. At the beginning of switching of reading, the buffer memory is filled with the information of the video clip 3a, so that a standby occurs until the free space is generated.
Reading is continued until the information of b is stored in the buffer memory for 10 seconds. In the subsequent operation, the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b are alternately read for 5 seconds each and sequentially stored in the buffer memory 6.

When such an operation is performed, the buffer memory 6 stores two pieces of video clips 3a and 3b.
One piece of information will be stored. At this time, both video clips 3a and 3b in the buffer memory 6 have the same time information. The selector 7 selects either the video clip 3a or the video clip 3b based on the instruction from the user. The video of the video clip 3a is decoded into a video signal by the decoder 9a, and at the same time, the video of the video clip 3b is decoded into a video signal by the decoder 9b. Therefore, the selector 7 is actually the decoder 9a.
Alternatively, the video signal decoded by 9b is switched.

In this way, the user can select an arbitrary image from the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b. The period in which the video can be selected is an overlapping section in which the time information of the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b overlap, and in this example, the section from TS2 to TE2. Since the time information 4 represents the time when these videos were recorded, the user can enjoy switching between images recorded at the same time.

At this time, the system controller turns on the enable lamp 12 provided in the display section so that the user can recognize that the multi-angle reproduction is possible. Also, one of the plurality of select lamps 13 lights up, so that the clip currently selected can be known. It is difficult to uniquely determine the correspondence between the select lamp 13 and the selected video clip. However, the video clip 3a that was being reproduced immediately before the multi-angle is enabled is displayed by the select lamp 13a,
The other video clip 3a may be associated with the select lamp 13b. It should be noted that in the example currently described, the user selects and outputs one of the video clips 3a and 3b during the multi-angle playback period, but this is not necessarily limited to one. .

Subsequently, the video clip 3a or 3b
Since the data of the video clip 3b to be read ends when the current time of playing back the video data approaches TE2, the work of reading the information of the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b from the optical disk 2 alternately to the buffer memory 6 until then. After that, the data of only the video clip 3a is continuously read. Further, when the current time reaches TE2 when the video clip selected by the user is 3b, the system controller 10 causes the selector 7 to operate.
To the video clip 3a side. In this way, the image is not interrupted even when the end time TE2 of the video clip 3b is reached.

When the current time at which the video clip 3a is subsequently reproduced approaches TE1, the data of the video clip 3a to be prefetched in the buffer memory 6 ends, so that the information of the next video clip 3c to be reproduced is continuously obtained. Is read from the optical disc 2 and then stored in the buffer memory 6. When the reproduction time reaches TE1, the video clip 3c is continuously reproduced without leaving a time gap.

Then, when the current time of the video clip 3c being reproduced approaches TS4, the information signals of the video clip 3d and the video clip 3c are alternately read and stored in the buffer memory 6 as in the example described above. The operation at this time is the same as that described above, and multi-angle reproduction is possible at the time from TS3 to TE4.

Further, this time, the information of the video clip 3c will be ended first, but as in the above description, when the reproduction time reaches TE3, the user selects and reproduces the video clip 3c. In this case, the system controller 10 can automatically switch the selector 7 to the video clip 3d and continue the playback operation without interruption of the playback image. When the reproduction time approaches TE4, there is no data to be read ahead from the optical disc 2 and read into the buffer memory 6, so the read operation from the optical disc 2 ends, and the information of the video clip 3d stored in the buffer memory 6 ends. When the image disappears, the video reproduction ends.

As is clear from the above operation, when the time information 4 of a plurality of video clips 3 recorded on the optical disc 2 is duplicated, multi-angle reproduction selectable by the user is performed. become. Time information 4
If there is no duplication, the normal reproduction is performed. Because of this operation, in order to perform multi-angle playback, it is only necessary to add the time information 4 to the video clip 3, and it is necessary to create a bitstream in which a plurality of video clips are interleaved in advance. You don't have to do it.

In the above description, the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b are alternately read out and sequentially stored in the buffer memory 6. Such an operation will be described in more detail. First, the video clip 3 includes video information and audio information, of which the video information is compressed by a digital compression method called MPEG2, and the audio signal is also compressed in a predetermined format.
The bit rate of the combined signal is 5 Mbps to 12
It has a width such as Mbps and has higher quality video information as the bit rate increases. But,
In the following description, the bit rate of the video clip 3 is fixed at 8 Mbps for discussion. It is for the purpose of avoiding the complexity of the description, and a bit rate different from this does not depart from the gist of the present invention.

The capacity of the buffer memory 6 required to hold the video clip 3 of 8 Mbps for 20 seconds is 160.
It becomes Mbit, that is, 20 Mbytes, but this is not an unrealistic capacity.

Now, assuming that the read speed when storing from the optical disk 2 to the buffer memory 6 is 25 Mbps, the read operation from the optical disk 2 is performed while the video clip 3 is being played at 8 Mbps, so the information of 17 Mbps is subtracted per second. Will be stored in the buffer memory 6. Therefore, the buffer memory 6 having a capacity of 20 seconds becomes full in about 10 seconds. When the buffer memory 6 becomes full, the reading from the optical disk 2 is temporarily stopped, and when a certain amount of free space occurs, the reading from the disk 2 is started again and the buffer memory becomes as full as possible. Keep

Under such a condition, for example, from the state where the video clip 3a is being read, the video clip 3
In order to change b to the state of going to reading, it is necessary to move the optical head 5 to the position where the video clip 3b is recorded. Time TW is required. In the optical disk system, the waiting time TW generally takes several hundred milliseconds, and in this example, the waiting time TW will be described as 500 ms.

8 Mbps at a read speed of 25 Mbps
The time required to read the information of the video clip 3 for n seconds is 8n / 25 seconds. When the waiting time TW is added, it takes 8n / 25 + 0.5 seconds. Therefore, 2
When n video is read every n seconds while alternately switching one video clip 3, the read speed including the waiting time TW is 8n ÷ (8n / 25 + 0.5) Mbps. Here, when n is 5 seconds, the effective read speed is calculated by using the above equation, which is about 19 Mbps. Now 2
Since one video clip 3 is read alternately, the read speed per video clip is 19/2 = on average.
It is 9.5 Mbps. Since this is faster than 8 Mbps, there is no so-called buffer underflow in which the buffer memory becomes empty. As described above, it is sufficiently possible to alternately read two video clips 3 and store them in the buffer memory 6 as in the present invention.

Now, as a concrete example in which the above multi-angle reproducing apparatus is useful, a "school athletic meet", which is often taken by a home-camera integrated video recorder, will be described. Note that the drawings for explanation are omitted.

Usually, the participants of the school athletic meet are students and their parents take the picture. Now, it is assumed that two parents, parent a and parent b, shoot the video clip 3, respectively. Parents a and b will mainly take pictures of their own children a and b, but when their children are not in turn and when other children are in turn, a long shot is used to take a full view of the athletic scene. Take a picture or take a picture of the cheering scene of the parents' seat. After the shooting is completed, the parent a becomes the parent b.
Copy the long-shot video clip 3 and the video clip 3 of the cheering scene taken by the user onto the optical disc 2.

In order to match the description with FIG. 2, the video clip 3a and the video clip 3c are mainly images of the child a photographed by the parent a, and the video clips 3b and 3d are long shots photographed by the parent b. It is supposed to be a video of the supportive scenery. At this time, since the guardian b is shooting the video clips 3b and 3d when the child a comes into play, the time information 4b and 4d added to the video clips 3b and 3d are the time information 4a of the video clips 3a and 3c. There is a portion overlapping with 4c.

As described above, by duplicating the video clips 3 shot separately at the overlapping times on the same optical disc 2, a plurality of video clips 3 having the overlapping time information 4 exist on the same optical disc 2. Will be done.

At this time, when the optical disc 2 of the parent a is reproduced, it is possible to perform a multi-angle reproduction with the video clip 3b of the cheering scene and the like which are simultaneously photographed while watching the video clip 3a centering on the child a. Next, you can enjoy the realistic images. Also, the work required to perform multi-angle playback is
All that is required is to duplicate the video clip 3 shot at the same time on the same optical disc 2 and select the video to be viewed. Since the multi-angle period is automatically determined based on the recorded time information 4, it is not necessary to perform an authoring operation or an operation of interleaving a plurality of video clips 3 to make the multi-angle.

Here, if the camera-integrated video recorder used by the guardian a to compose the multi-angle reproducing apparatus of the present invention, the guardian b reproduces the video clips 3c and 3d at the site of the athletic meet. By playing back the image on the liquid crystal display device mounted on the camera-integrated video recorder, it is possible to immediately perform the above-described multi-angle playback, and it is possible to enjoy a very realistic image.

As described above, in the multi-angle reproducing apparatus of the present invention, when the time information 4 of a plurality of video clips 3 recorded on the optical disc 2 overlap, the time axes coincide in the overlapping sections. It is possible to easily perform the multi-angle reproduction.

Here, the time information 4 is the date and time information of the photographing and can be added by the photographing equipment. Of course, the time information 4 may be added by other methods, and the method of adding the time information 4 itself is not the gist of the present invention, and thus detailed description will be omitted.
Also, if there is an error in the clock information held inside the shooting equipment, there will be an error in the time information 4 given to the multiple video clips shot by different equipment, and there will be a time lag during multi-angle playback. It is expected to occur.
In order to correct this error, it is better to add a correction means for instructing the error of the time information 4 at the time of shooting and correcting the read timing based on this instruction information when reading from the reproduction drive 1.

In order to prevent such a time error at the time of photographing, for example, in Japan, a time signal such as a time signal sound of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, such as a time signal of a television or radio broadcast, or a standard radio wave of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Research Institute. By adjusting the timepiece by receiving the signal (JJY) or the like, it is possible to match the timepieces of a plurality of devices with extremely high accuracy. Since the present invention relates to a reproducing method, it does not refer to a method of adding time information at the time of shooting, and naturally, a description of a method of correcting the clock accuracy of a device does not restrict the gist of the present invention. Absent.

In the above-described embodiment of the present invention, the number of video clips 3 stored in the buffer memory 6 at the same time is two. That is, n in FIG.
Although the value of was set to 2, it may be set to a number of 3 or more. In order to set n to be 3 or more, if the reading speed of the information from the optical disk 2 is n times the bit rate of the video clip 3 plus the loss necessary for accessing the optical head, it is sufficiently fast. Good.

(Second Embodiment) Next, the second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
Embodiments will be described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 3, one or a plurality of video clips 3 are recorded on each of the optical disc 2a and the optical disc 2b, and each video clip 3 has time information 4 as in the first embodiment. Each is stored as a single file.

Optical disks 2a and 2b are mounted on the reproduction drive 1a and the reproduction drive 1b, respectively. The optical head 5a mounted on the reproduction drive 1a reads the signal of the video clip VC from the optical disc 2a and stores it in the buffer memory 6a. Similarly, the optical head 5b mounted on the reproduction drive 1b reads the signal of the video clip VC from the optical disc 2b and stores it in the buffer memory 6b. The buffer memory 6a is connected to the decoder 9a and decodes the digitally compressed video.
Similarly, the buffer memory 6b is connected to the decoder 9b.

Further, the buffer memories 6a and 6b are apparently continuous even if the reading of signals from the optical disks 2a and 2b is temporarily interrupted when the optical heads 5a and 5b perform a seek operation. It is a buffer area for taking out a signal and has a capacity of several seconds of the video clip 3. If the bit rate of the video clip is 8 Mbps and the capacity of the buffer memory is 64 Mbit, the capacity is 8 seconds, which is sufficient for the seek operation of the optical heads 5a and 5a.

The system controller 10 controls the overall operation of the system, receives instructions from the user, and controls the lighting of the indicators provided on the display unit 11. The display unit 11 is provided with an enable lamp 12 and a select lamp 13,
The enable lamp 12 lights up when multi-angle switching is possible, and the select lamps 13a and 13b indicate which of the reproduction drives 1a and 1b the selected video clip 3 belongs to. The outputs of the decoders 9a and 9b are connected to a selector 7 which is a video switching means, and one of the videos is selected and output.

The operation of the multi-angle reproducing apparatus having the above structure will be described below. For the sake of explanation, it is assumed that the optical disc 2a contains video clips 3a and 3c, and the optical disc 2b contains video clips 3b and 3d. At this time, each video clip 3
As in the first embodiment, the time information 4a to 4d included in each of a to 3d is information in which the start time is TS1 to TS4 and the end time is TE1 to TE4, and the order thereof is shown in FIG. As shown, TS1, TS2, TE2
It is assumed that the order is TE1, TS3, TS4, TE3, TE4.

The system controller is the optical disc 2a,
The time information 4a-4d added to the plurality of video clips 3a-3d recorded in 2b is read and compared.
At this time, it is determined whether or not the time information included in the video clips recorded on the optical disc 2a and the optical disc 2b has an overlapping time. In the present example, the video clips 3a and 3b and the video clips 3c and 3d have the times of overlap.

At this time, the system controller 10 determines the reproduction order of the video clips 3a to 3d according to the time information 4a to 4d. That is, first, the reproduction drive 1a is operated to start reproduction of the video clip 3a. The current time of the video clip 3a being reproduced can be known by adding the reproduction integrated time of the video clip 3a to the start time TS1.

The same applies to the other video clips 3b to 3d. In this reproducing operation, the signal of the video clip 3a is stored in the buffer memory 6a in advance,
This is performed by reading a signal from the buffer memory 6a, and the decoder 9a connected to the buffer memory 6a decodes the compressed signal of the video clip into video data. The selector, which is the image selection means, automatically selects the decoder 9a side by the system controller. That is, the video clip 3a is reproduced and output.

When the current time of the video clip 3a being reproduced approaches the start time TS2 of the video clip 3b, the system controller 10 operates the reproduction drive 1b to start reading the video clip 3b and store it in the buffer memory 6b. To do. Upon reaching TS2, a signal is read from the buffer memory 6b, and the signal of the video clip 3b is decoded by the decoder 9b into a video signal.
At this time, the decoder 9a is decoding the video clip 3a and the decoder 9b is decoding the video clip 3b at the same time, and the video selected by the selector 7 is output by the user instruction.

In this way, the user can select an arbitrary image from the video clip 3a and the video clip 3b. The time when the image can be selected is an overlapping section in which the time information of the video clip 3a and the time information of the video clip 3b overlap, and in this example, the section from TS2 to TE2. Since the time information 4 represents the time when these videos were recorded, the user can enjoy switching between images recorded at the same time.

At this time, the system controller turns on the enable lamp 12 provided in the display unit 11 in order to let the user know that the multi-angle reproduction is possible. Also, one of the plurality of select lamps 13 lights up, so that the clip currently selected can be known.

There are 3 video clips selected by the user.
When the current time reaches TE2 when it is b, the system controller 10 causes the selector 7 to move to the video clip 3
Switch to side a. In this way, video clip 3
It is possible to prevent the video from being interrupted even when the end time TE2 of b is reached. Furthermore, when the current time of playing the video clip 3a reaches its end time TE1,
Then, the reproduction of the video clip 3c is started.

By the same operation as above, TS4 to TE3
In the period up to, the multi-angle reproduction of the video clip 3c and the video clip 3d becomes possible. This time, the information of video clip 3c will end first,
Similar to the above description, when the user selects and plays the video clip 3c when the playback time reaches TE3, the system controller 10 automatically switches the selector 7 to the video clip 3d, and the played video is displayed. The playback operation can be continued without interruption. When the current time of reproduction reaches the end time TE4 of the video clip 3d, the reproduction operation ends.

As is apparent from the above, when the time information 4 of a plurality of video clips 3 recorded on the optical disc 2a and the optical disc 2b are duplicated, multi-angle reproduction selectable by the user is performed. Will be When there is no overlap in the time information 4, normal reproduction is performed. Because of such operation, in order to perform multi-angle reproduction, the time information 4 is added to the video clip 3.
Need only be added, and work such as creating a bitstream in which a plurality of video clips are interleaved in advance need not be performed.

Now, as a case in which the above multi-angle reproducing apparatus is effective, the “school athletic meet” shown in the first embodiment will be cited and explained again. The description of the same parts as those in the first embodiment will be omitted. As described in the first embodiment, it is assumed that the video clips 3a and 3c captured by the parent a are recorded on the optical disc 2a, and the video clips 3b and 3d captured by the parent b are recorded on the optical disc 2b. . If this is applied to the present embodiment, it is possible to perform multi-angle reproduction with the video clip 3b such as a cheering scene that was simultaneously shot while watching the video clip 3a centering on the child a as in the first embodiment. It becomes possible and you can enjoy realistic images.

Further, the work required to perform the multi-angle reproduction is to mount a plurality of optical discs 2 containing the video clips 3 shot at the same time on the reproduction drive 1 and select a desired image. Just good. Since the multi-angle period is automatically determined based on the recorded time information 4, it is not necessary to perform an authoring operation or an operation of interleaving a plurality of video clips 3 to make the multi-angle.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, the number of the plurality of reproduction drives 1 is two, but the number may be three or more, and the same operation is possible.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the same system controller has been described as a structure for controlling two devices, but it is not always necessary to have such a structure.
For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the reproduction drive 1b may be provided with an independent sub system controller 14, and the system controller 10 may give an instruction to the sub system controller 14. With such a configuration, the posture drive 1b having the sub system controller 14 can be a single independent device, so that the present invention can be configured by, for example, connecting a plurality of devices. It will be possible.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the medium on which the video clip 3 is recorded is the optical disc 2, but this may include a magneto-optical disc. Although a magneto-optical disk requires an external magnetic field for recording and / or reproducing operation, the magneto-optical disk can be regarded as an optical disk in a broad sense without departing from the gist of the present invention.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the medium on which the video clip 3 is recorded is the optical disc 2, but this may be another type of medium. For example, a fixed disk device (HDD) may be used. In this case, the optical disk 2 and the optical head 5 in the above embodiment correspond to a magnetic disk and a magnetic head, respectively. Of course, the application of the present invention is not excluded even in cases other than fixed disks.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the time information 4 is the date and time when the video clip was shot, but it is not always necessary. For example, the arbitrary time information 4 may be given to the video clip 3 after the video clip 3 is created. The present invention does not limit the method of adding the time information 4.

Although the video clip 3 is compressed by MPEG2 in the above-described first and second embodiments, the format is not limited to this.
There are various types of video signal compression methods, and any of these methods does not depart from the gist of the present invention.

In addition, in the above-described first and second embodiments, a display section, an enable lamp, and a select lamp are provided to inform the user of the multi-angle enabled state and the type of the selected video clip. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, the state may be superimposed on the video signal so that the indicator can be displayed on the display screen.

Further, in the above-mentioned first and second embodiments, the reproduction order of the video clips is explained as the order of the respective time information, but this need not necessarily be the case. For example, the reproduction may be performed in the order arbitrarily specified by the user.

In the above embodiment, when the video clips 3c and 3a are to be played back in the order given by the user, the video clips 3d have overlapping time information during the playback of the video clips 3c. Multi-angle playback of the clip 3c and the video clip 3d is possible, and the end time TE of the video clip 3c is reached.
After 3 is reached, the operation of reproducing the video clip 3a is started. The present invention can be applied to such an operation.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the decoder 9 is provided between the buffer memory 6 and the selector 7, but the decoder 9 may be provided after the selector 7. In this case, image distortion and time axis deviation may occur depending on the compression format of the video signal, but this can be avoided if the compression format is appropriate.

In the first and second embodiments described above, the user selects and outputs one video clip 3 in the multi-angle reproduction period, but the number is not limited to one. May be. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the image composition unit 15 may be used to output and display two or more images by a method such as picture-in-picture. Of course, not only the picture-in-picture format but also tiling display in which two or more videos are aligned and displayed may be used.

At this time, the user can configure, for example, the video clip 3 to be displayed on the parent screen image. Although FIG. 5 shows a case where the picture-in-picture format is adopted for the first embodiment, the same operation can be performed for the second embodiment by providing the video synthesizing unit 15 in the same manner.

Alternatively, instead of selecting one video clip 3 by the selector 7, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, all the reproducible video signals are independently output in the multi-angle reproducible period. Is also good. FIG. 6 shows a configuration in which the selector 7
However, the configuration without the selector 7 can also be adopted for the second embodiment.

[0084]

As shown in the above embodiments, according to the first invention of the present application, time information of a plurality of video clips having time information is compared, and a plurality of video clips that overlap when there is an overlapping period. Are sequentially read and stored in the buffer memory, and one or more video clips stored in the buffer memory are output, so that multi-angle playback can be performed for a plurality of video clips with overlapping sections. It has become possible.

As described above, according to the present invention, in order to perform multi-angle reproduction, it is sufficient that a plurality of video clips are accompanied by overlapping time information, and authoring work such as instructing a multi-angle section in advance and a plurality of video clips can be performed. The effect of interleaving the video clips of No. 1 and converting them into one bit stream becomes unnecessary, and there is an effect that multi-angle reproduction can be easily performed.

Further, according to the second invention of the present application, regarding a video clip in a medium mounted in a plurality of reproduction drives, when reproducing a certain video clip, time information of the video clip and other reproduction drives are recorded. By comparing the time information of the video clips in the same section, and simultaneously operating a plurality of playback drives for the overlapping video clips having the overlapping sections to simultaneously read a predetermined video clip and the overlapping video clips. Multi-angle playback is now possible for video clips.

As described above, according to the present invention, in order to perform multi-angle reproduction, it is sufficient that a plurality of video clips are accompanied by overlapping time information, and authoring work such as instructing a multi-angle section in advance or a plurality of times. There is no need to interleave video clips and convert them into one bit stream, and there is an effect that multi-angle reproduction can be easily performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a video clip having overlapping time information.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of another configuration of the second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a configuration of an example of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of another configuration of the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual diagram of a conventional interleave method.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 playback drive 2 optical disc 3 3a-3d video clips 4, 4a-4d time information 5 optical head 6 buffer memory 7 selector 8 display devices 9 9a, 9b decoder 10 system controller 11 Display 12 enable lamps 13 Select lamp 14 Sub system controller 15 Video synthesizer 16 Main screen image 17 Child screen image

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F-term (reference) 5C052 AA02 AA03 AC10 DD04                 5C053 FA23 FA24 GB02 GB06 HA33                       JA22 KA04 LA05                 5D044 AB05 AB07 BC06 CC04 DE14                       FG10 JJ07

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A medium in which a plurality of video clips having time information is recorded, a reproduction drive for reading information from the medium, an operation control unit for controlling the operation of the reproduction drive, and the plurality of video clips are temporarily stored. And a buffer memory that retains the predetermined video clip, the operation control unit compares time information of the predetermined video clip with a plurality of other video clips to reproduce the predetermined video clip. , Read an overlapping video clip having an overlapping section of the time information from a medium, store it in the buffer memory, and output at least one of the predetermined video clip and the overlapping video clip stored in the buffer memory. A multi-angle playback device characterized by: 2. A plurality of media in which a plurality of video clips having time information are recorded, a plurality of reproduction drives in which the plurality of media are respectively mounted and which read out the plurality of video clips, and a plurality of the reproduction drives. An operation control unit for controlling the operation, and when reproducing a predetermined video clip of one reproduction drive unit of the plurality of reproduction drives, the operation control unit includes time information of the predetermined video clip and other information. Time information of a plurality of video clips in the reproduction drive of the above-mentioned video recorder is compared, and the plurality of reproduction drives are operated at the same time for the predetermined video clip and the overlapping video clip having the overlapping section of the time information, and the predetermined video Both the clip and the duplicate video clip are read from their respective playback drives to A multi-angle playback device characterized by outputting at least one of duplicate video clips. 3. The multi-angle playback device according to claim 1, wherein the time information is recording time information based on a recording date and time when the video clip is photographed. 4. The multi-angle reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the recording medium is an optical disk or a magneto-optical disk. 5. A display means for displaying that at least one of a predetermined video clip and a duplicate video clip is ready to be output.
Alternatively, the multi-angle reproducing device described in 2.