JPH0963251A - Multimedia optical disk, reproducing device and recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make high speed read-out of an application selection menu-possible by respectively and repeatedly storing title selection menu information in plural areas. SOLUTION: When a control signal for calling the title selection menu is inputted from an input means 606 to a control means 612, menu operation is decided by a menu call means 609 based on reference information in the menu information held in a menu information hold means 607. Then, it is discriminated which of a disk management information area and a digital compression moving image storage area the menu information is taken out from by a menu information selection means 610 according to a present position and a reproducing state of a large capacity optical disk 601. Then, a menu display and menu control based on the read out menu information are performed by a menu control means 611. Thus, the title selection menu is read out at a high speed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multimedia optical disc capable of reproducing or recording / reproducing information signals constituting digital compressed moving image information and menu information, a reproducing apparatus and a recording method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, laser discs and video CDs have been known as optical information recording media for recording and reproducing audio information and moving image information and reproducing devices thereof.

A laser disk is an optical disk having a diameter of about 30 cm which is capable of recording analog moving image data for about one hour, and has been widely used as a recording medium for movies and music videos.

However, since the laser disk is not an appropriate size in consideration of carrying and storing, a more compact recording medium has been demanded. For this reason, a video CD uses MPEG (Movin
By recording by a high compression rate digital data compression method called a gPictureExpertsGroup) method, recording and reproduction of a moving image on a CD (CompactDisc_) having a diameter of 12 cm, which was originally a disk for recording audio information, is realized.

In the case of a video CD, while realizing a compact disc size, the resolution of a moving image reproduced and output is only about 352 × 240, which is sufficient as a recording medium for movie applications requiring high image quality. Was not.

In recent years, Digital Video Disk (hereinafter referred to as DVD) has been proposed as a compact and high-quality moving image recording medium.

Originally, moving image data has a large capacity as compared with voice information and the like, and further enormous data capacity is required for achieving high image quality. Therefore, in order to achieve compactness and high image quality, it is necessary to realize high density recording. Currently, studies for increasing the recording density of these optical discs are being actively conducted. It is obvious that the spot system D of the light beam may be made small in order to increase the recording density, but the spot system D can be made smaller as the numerical aperture NA of the objective lens is larger and the wavelength λ of the laser is shorter. This is because the spot system D is proportional to λ / NA.

By the way, as a peculiar problem when a lens having a large NA is used, a blur (coma aberration) due to a relative tilt between a disk surface and an optical axis of a light beam called tilt.
Becomes large, which makes it difficult to read recorded information. In order to prevent this, it can be improved by reducing the thickness of the transparent substrate, as described in, for example, US Pat. No. 5,235,581.

Further, when the transparent substrate is made thin, the mechanical strength becomes weak, but it is effective to adopt a structure in which another substrate is bonded for reinforcement.

For the reason described above, the DVD has a larger NA of 0.45 to 0.6 than that of the CD standard.
The spot of the light beam is made small, which realizes high-density recording. Furthermore, the mechanical strength of the recording medium is increased and the thickness of the transparent substrate is C as shown in FIG.
Whereas D is a single plate having a thickness of 1.2 mm, DVD has two thin substrates having a thickness of 0.6 mm which are bonded together to form an information layer therein. This allows a DVD to be a 12 cm disc with the same diameter as a CD, 5 GB on one side (10 G on both sides)
The information capacity of B) is realized.

As described above, since the DVD has a data capacity which is about 10 times as large as the recording capacity of the CD, it is possible to record high-quality moving image data having a large data capacity. For this reason, the DVD uses the MPEG2 system, which is capable of realizing high-quality moving images, although it is the same MPEG system as the video CD.

In addition to improving the image quality, the DVD not only improves the image quality, but also makes use of its large recording capacity to record a plurality of different movies on one optical disc, and the same movie in the uncut version and the movie release version. It is also possible to record multiple versions different from the TV version.

In the case of a conventional video CD, when an application is selected on an optical disc on which a plurality of applications such as movies are recorded, menu information is set in the disc management information area.

[0014]

However, when a plurality of applications can be selected with the above conventional configuration,
In order to display a menu to switch to another application during playback of one application, in order to obtain menu information or information for managing the menu information, the disc management is performed from the area where the currently playing application is stored. Although it is necessary to move the optical head to the information area, in a large-capacity optical disk that exceeds 5 GB such as a DVD, the amount of movement is too large to be ignored, and there is a problem that it takes time to read the menu. It was

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a multimedia optical disk and a reproducing apparatus for the same which enable high-speed reading of application selection menus.

[0016]

In order to solve the above problems, a multimedia optical disc of the present invention and a reproducing apparatus for the same are stored in a title selection menu information stored in a disc management information area and a digital compressed moving image storage area. The title selection menu information is provided.

[0017]

According to the present invention, with the above-described structure, the title selection menu can be read out at high speed.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a multimedia optical disk and a reproducing apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First, the physical structure of the optical disk used in this embodiment will be described. FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a DVD optical disc according to this embodiment. In FIG. 1, the DVD 107
Is a first transparent substrate 10 having a thickness of 0.6 mm from the bottom of the drawing.
8 、 Information layer 1 on which a reflective film such as a metal thin film is attached
09, the second transparent substrate 111, an adhesive layer 11 provided between the information layer 109 and the second transparent substrate 111 to bond them together.
0, and if necessary, the second transparent substrate 11
1 is provided with a printing layer 112 for printing a label.

The print layer 112 is not essential for a DVD, and the second transparent substrate 111 may be exposed without the print layer 112 if it is not necessary.

In FIG. 1, a lower surface on which the reproducing light beam 113 is incident and information is reproduced is referred to as a front surface A, and an upper surface on which the print layer 112 is formed is referred to as a rear surface B. First transparent substrate 10
On the surface of No. 8 which is in contact with the information layer 109, uneven pits are formed by a molding technique, and information is recorded by changing the length and interval of the pits. That is, the uneven pit shape of the second transparent substrate 108 is transferred to the information layer 109. The length of the pits is shorter than that of the conventional CD, and the track pitch, which is the pitch of the information tracks formed by the pit row, is also narrowed, and the areal recording density is improved.

Further, the surface A side of the first transparent substrate 108 where the pits are not formed is a flat surface. The second transparent substrate is used for reinforcement and is made of the same material as the first transparent substrate 108 and has the same thickness of 0.6 mm and is a flat transparent substrate on both sides.

Then, a light beam 113 from an optical head (not shown) is irradiated from the surface A shown below, is focused on the information layer 109, and is focused as an optical spot 114 on the information layer 109. Since the phase of the reflected light is different from the surroundings in the part with pits, optical interference occurs and the reflectance decreases, and in the part without pits the interference does not occur, resulting in higher reflectance, resulting in a change in reflectance. Information is reproduced. Further, since the light spot 114 of the DVD has a large NA and a small λ, the light spot 106 of the CD is
The diameter is about 1 / 1.6 compared to. This gives C
It has a recording capacity of 5 GB, which is about 10 times that of D.

Next, the data structure of the above-mentioned optical disk will be described. In DVD, terms for the logical structure of the DVD application are frequently quoted and used in each name of the data structure. Therefore, for convenience of description, first, the logical structure of an application recorded on an optical disk and the definition of terms will be described.

In the DVD of this embodiment, a unit of application is called a title. The title is one movie if it is a movie application. Therefore, an optical disc storing three titles records three movies. As a superordinate concept of titles, there is a title set indicating a plurality of titles that share video information with each other. For example, in the same movie, uncut version, theatrical release version,
If there were three versions that shared much of the television version and the video information with each other, these would be one title set. The optical disc of this embodiment can record a plurality of title sets. For example, when each of movie A, movie B, and movie C records a movie version and an uncut version, three title sets each including two titles are recorded. Each title consists of a program and a program playback path. A program is a logical reproduction unit of video information and audio information, and corresponds to an MPEG system stream called a cell. The reason why there is a program as a logical reproduction unit is that cells are shared by different reproduction paths. A reproduction path of a program that does not include a branch is called a program chain. These program chains are connected to each other by a link from a program including a branch such as a menu, and a playback path including the branch is constructed, which becomes a title set.

The data structure recorded on the optical disc 1 will be described below on the premise of the logical structure of the application described above.

Data to be recorded on the optical disc is recorded in the lead-in area, the data area,
It is arranged with the lead-out area. The lead-in area specifies to the disc reproducing apparatus the preparation for starting reproduction, and the lead-out area specifies to the disc reproducing apparatus the end position of the recorded information. Volume data is stored in the data area, and the volume data is managed by block numbers as a one-dimensional array of logical blocks composed of 2048 bytes. The volume data is composed of a plurality of file data and management information of the entire disk for managing the file system.

FIG. 2 shows the data structure of the entire optical disc of this embodiment. The recording information is composed of a disc information file and a plurality of video files.

The disc information file stores information about the entire title set stored in the disc as a disc management information area.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of the disc information file. The disc information file includes a file management table showing the internal configuration of the disc information file, and disc configuration information for managing information such as video file names, storage locations, and title names (the explanation of which is omitted in relation to the present invention). It stores menu information for the user to select a title set at the start of playback of the disc and menu configuration information for selecting the language of subtitles and audio in each title set. As the reference information of the menu called as each menu information, a program chain number indicating which program chain the image information making up the menu information is included.

Video files store individual title sets. FIG. 4 shows the structure of a video file. A video file is composed of video file management information and video file data. In the video file data, all MPEG system streams that make up the title set are stored.

FIG. 5 is a data structure diagram of video file management information. The video file management information includes a video file management table, title management information, and program chain information table. The video file management table is the header information of this file. Furthermore, the video file management information stores menu information for the user to select another title set during title reproduction, and menu configuration information for subtitle and audio language selection in each title set. As the reference information of the menu called as each menu information, a program chain number indicating which program chain the image information making up the menu information is included.

The description of the data structure recorded on the disc of the present embodiment is completed above, and then the reproducing apparatus for the present disc will be described.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of a multimedia optical disk reproducing apparatus according to this embodiment.

In FIG. 6, reference numeral 601 denotes an optical disk which is a DVD disk in which recording information is stored with the data structure described in FIG. 602 is a motor for driving the optical disk, 6
Reference numeral 03 is an optical head for reading out signals recorded on the optical disc. Reference numeral 604 is a data reading unit that performs signal processing such as amplification, live system demodulation, and error correction of the signal read from the optical head and reads it. Reference numeral 605 is an AV decoding means for converting the read data into the original video signal or audio signal. An input unit 606 includes a remote controller, a remote controller signal receiving unit, and a remote controller signal interpreting unit. Reference numeral 607 denotes a buffer memory, which is menu information holding means for holding input menu information. Reference numeral 608 denotes a buffer memory, which is a reproduction control information holding unit that holds the input program chain information. Reference numeral 609 is a menu calling unit that refers to the menu reference information and gives an instruction as to which menu information should be taken out. A menu information selection unit 610 determines which menu information should be acquired according to the current position of the optical head and the reproduction state. Reference numeral 611 denotes a menu control means for displaying a menu and controlling the menu. Reference numeral 612 is a control means which is a system controller for controlling the mechanical system and the reproduction apparatus as a whole, and includes a menu information selection means 610 and a menu control means 611.

An operation example will be described based on the multimedia optical disk and the reproducing apparatus having the above-mentioned configurations.

First, the reproduction output operation of reproducing the information recorded on the optical disc 601 and outputting the sound and the image will be described.

(Reproduction Output Operation) When the data to be read is determined, the control means 612 calculates the block address in which the data is stored and instructs the data reading means 604 to read the block data. The data reading means 604 reproduces the corresponding block of the optical disc 601 according to the instruction, performs predetermined signal processing such as demodulation processing and error processing on the reproduced signal, and converts it into a digital data string,
This is written in the built-in buffer memory. Control means 6
If the digital data string 12 stored in the buffer memory of the data reading means 604 is management information, the reproduction control according to it is continued, but if the digital data string is not management information, it is transferred to the AV decoding means 605. The AV decoding means 605 to which the digital data string is input discriminates the system stream interleaved by the built-in system decoder for each packet and separates it into a video pack, an audio pack, and a sub-picture pack, and the video pack is audio-processed by the video decoder. The pack is processed by the audio decoder and the sub-picture pack is processed by the sub-picture decoder. The video decoder decodes and expands the MPEG2 video stream and outputs it as a digital video signal. The audio decoder converts the data string transferred by a predetermined process into a digital audio signal and outputs it. The digital audio signal is converted into an analog audio signal by the D / A converter, and the audio is output by the speaker device. The sub-picture decoder decodes the run-length compressed image data, decompresses it, and outputs it as a digital picture signal. The video synthesizing unit mixes the output of the video decoder and the output of the sub-video decoder at a ratio designated by the control unit 612, converts the output into an analog video signal, and outputs the analog video signal. The analog video signal is output by the display device.

Next, the operation for reproducing the title selection menu will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

(Menu Reproducing Operation) When the user depresses the menu key of the remote controller, the remote controller signal receiving section of the input means 606 receives the infrared transmitted signal from the remote controller, converts it into a control command in the remote controller signal interpreting section, and controls it. The control command is output to the means 612.

The control means 612, to which the control signal for calling the title selection menu is input, determines which menu operation is to be performed by the menu calling means 609.

The menu calling unit 609 determines whether the information stored in the menu information holding unit 607 is valid (step 701). If it is not valid, the menu calling unit 609 instructs the data reading unit 604 to read the disc information file shown in FIG. 3 (step 702).

The disc information file stores menu information including calling menu reference information.

When the disc information file is read,
The menu information holding means 607 holds the menu information included in the disc information file. Further, the program chain information including the image information of the menu information is held in the reproduction control information holding means 608 (step 70).
3).

If it is valid in step 701, or after executing steps 702 and 703, the following operation is performed.

The menu calling means 609 determines the menu operation corresponding to the menu key pressed by the user, based on the menu reference information in the menu information held in the menu information holding means 607. Here, for convenience of explanation, the menu operation corresponding to the menu key is the title selection menu (step 704).

The control means 612 for calling the title selection menu determines which title selection menu information is to be acquired by the menu selection means 610.

The menu selection means 610 determines whether the information stored in the menu information holding means 607 is valid (step 705).

If it is valid, the management information of the image information of the menu information is acquired from the reproduction control information holding means 608 and the data reading means 604 is instructed to read the corresponding image information (step 706). When the image information of the menu is reproduced, the menu control means 611 displays the menu and controls the menu. If it is not valid in step 705, the menu selecting means 610 instructs the data reading means 604 to read the disc information file shown in FIG. 3 (step 707).

The disc information file stores menu information for selecting a title and management information of image information of the menu information.

When the disc information file is read,
The menu information holding means 607 holds the menu information included in the disc information file. The program chain information including the image information of the menu information is held in the reproduction control information holding means 608.

Thereafter, the operation from step 706 is performed.
The menu information for selecting the title set is output as video,
By selecting a menu item, the user determines the title to be played back. When the user determines the title to be reproduced, the control unit 612 instructs the data reading unit 604 to reproduce the video file including the confirmed title. In the reproduction of the video file, the video file management information shown in FIG. X is first reproduced, and the menu information included in the video file management information is the menu information holding means 6
It is held at 07. The program chain information including the image information of the menu information is the reproduction control information holding means 60.
8 (step 708).

In the present embodiment, the menu operation called from the menu key is the title selection menu. However, a voice language switching menu common to the titles,
It may be a subtitle language switching menu.

Further, the concept of the menu is a means for widely asking the user to make a selection, and it is not limited to the selection by the root even if it is used in the embodiment. It may be a mouse operation, a pen operation, or a voice instruction.

The menu referred to by the calling menu reference information corresponding to different menu keys is shown in FIG.
They may be different as shown in (a) or may be the same as shown in FIG. 8 (b).

[0056]

As described above, according to the present invention, by providing the title selection menu information stored in the disc management information area and the title selection menu information stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area, the title selection menu can be read at high speed. Is possible.

Moreover, the reliability is improved by recording the menu information in duplicate. Furthermore, by recording the menu for each title in the disc management information area,
It is possible to set the title information such as setting the subtitle language before playing the title. At this time, the menu for each title can also be read at high speed.

On the other hand, by providing the calling menu reference information for calling the menu from the dedicated key, the title creator can create the system menu. At this time, you can also call the single function menu,
You can also call a menu that sets multiple functions at the same time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a comparative diagram of a disc structure of a CD and a DVD.

[Fig. 2] Configuration diagram of the entire multimedia optical disc

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a disc information file of a multimedia optical disc.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a video file on a multimedia optical disc.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of video file management information of a multimedia optical disc.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of a multimedia optical disc reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of menu selection means in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of menu reference information.

[Explanation of symbols]

 601 Optical disc 602 Motor 603 Optical head 604 Data reading means 605 AV decoding means 606 Input means 607 Menu information holding means 608 Reproduction control information holding means 609 Menu calling means 610 Menu information selecting means 611 Menu control means 612 Control means

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Norihisa Fukushima 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Kazuhiko Yamauchi, 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture 72) Inventor Katsuhiko Miwa 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An optical disc having at least one information layer between a first transparent base material and a second transparent base material having substantially the same thickness of 0.6 mm or less, and A large-capacity optical disc having one or more disc management information areas containing management information for managing the configuration and one or more digital compressed moving image storage areas for storing one or more digital compressed moving images, and including a logically compressed digital image. Menu information composed of one or more digitally compressed moving image titles that are completely completed and image information for selecting one or more of the digitally compressed moving image titles stored in the digitally compressed moving image storage area. Title selection menu information, and the title selection menu information is stored in the disc management information area and the digital compressed moving image storage area, respectively. Multimedia optical disc and said. 2. One or more common menu information that is common to one or more digital compressed moving image titles stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area is stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area and is stored on a disc. The multimedia optical disk according to claim 1, wherein all the included common menu information is stored in a disk management information area. 3. The multimedia optical disk according to claim 2, further comprising calling menu reference information for referring to the title selection menu information or the common menu information. 4. A spindle motor for rotating and driving the digital moving image disk according to claim 1, an optical head for reading data formed on an information layer of the digital moving image disk, and the optical head. Disc data reading means for reading data on the digital moving image disc, and menu information selecting means for deciding whether to take out the menu information from the disc management information area or the digital compressed moving image storage area. A multimedia optical disk reproducing apparatus comprising menu display means and menu control means for performing menu control based on the menu information. 5. A spindle motor for rotating and driving the digital moving image disk according to claim 3, an optical head for reading data formed on an information layer of the digital moving image disk, and a digital device using the optical head. Disc data reading means for reading data on a moving image disc; menu calling means for instructing to retrieve menu information by referring to the called menu reference information when receiving a menu calling instruction from a user; A multimedia optical disc comprising menu information selection means for determining from which of the digital compressed moving image storage areas the menu information is taken out, and menu control means for performing menu display and menu control based on the read menu information. Playback device. 6. An optical disc having at least one information layer between a first transparent base material and a second transparent base material having substantially the same thickness of 0.6 mm or less, wherein A disk management information area containing management information for managing the configuration and one or more digital compressed moving picture storage areas for storing one or more digital compressed moving pictures, and a logically completed one including digital compressed moving pictures. The above digital compressed moving image title and title selection menu information which is menu information composed of image information for selecting one or more digital compressed moving image titles stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area A multi-recording device that has the title selection menu information stored in the disc management information area and the digital compressed moving image storage area and recorded on the optical disc. Deer optical disk recording method. 7. One or more common menu information common to one or more digital compressed moving image titles stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area is stored in the digital compressed moving image storage area and is stored on a disc. The multimedia optical disk recording method according to claim 6, wherein all the included common menu information is stored in a disk management information area and recorded on an optical disk. 8. The multimedia optical disk recording method according to claim 7, wherein call-up menu reference information for referring to the title selection menu information or the common menu information is recorded on the optical disk.