Sony Corporation

Toshiya Kaihoko

Tomoyuki Hanai

Tomoko Terakado

Yasutomo Nishina

Takashi Kawakami

Manabu Kii

Seiji Ohbi

Natsuo Ito

Motohiro Nishihata

Susumu Konuta

Teruhiko Sasaki

Masayo Narato

An information providing apparatus, in which program guide information is provided as first information which designates predetermined information and second information to be referred to by the first information. Layout information is provided from within the electronic program guide information, relating to the layout when the electronic program guide information is displayed on a screen.

Information providing apparatus and method, display controlling apparatus and method, information providing system, as well as transmission medium

The invention provides an information providing apparatus and method by which the amount of data to be transmitted when data of a program table composed of characters and images or the like are to be transmitted is reduced and it is made possible to cope with a change in contents of data rapidly. Data of an electronic program guide to be provided is hierarchized into data (Adata) which may possibly be changed such as the broadcasting date, the start time and the end time, data (Adata) which are not changed at all such as a program name, and data (Adata) composed of still pictures, moving pictures, voice and so forth which have comparatively large data amounts, and for each medium, data of a hierarchy suitable for the medium is provided. Each Adata is referred to by one or a plurality of Adata, and each Adata is referred to by one or a plurality of Adata.

A disc () has formed therein a header area () in which management information is recorded, and a data area () in which content information is recorded. Content information is recorded in units of an access block each including a succession of frames into the data area (). The leading frame of the access block is taken as a base point of decoding. In the header area (), there are recorded recording-position information for each access block and output-time information for the leading frame of each access block. At the top of the access block, there are recorded recording-position and output-time information for frames other than the leading frame. Thus, skip reproduction can be done by reading the recording-position and output-time information in the access block into a memory.

Recording device and method, reproduction device and method, and recording medium

A data editing method by which reduction of the burden of an editing process regarding stream data recorded on a recording medium is anticipated and a higher speed editing operation can be achieved. Stream data recorded on a recording medium are presupposed to be managed as a file by a file system. The stream data are managed in a unit of a track by a track managing data file managed by the file system. Editing of division or erasure in a unit of a track is executed by rewriting contents of track management information which defines each track in the track managing data file. With the configuration, when a division or erasure editing process in a unit of a track is performed, there is no necessity to rewrite the file system.

Data edition method and data edition device

The object of the present invention is to provide an image display apparatus suited to display a video program or the like for advertisement purposes. The image display apparatus comprises a storage medium installation section ( ), a memory section ( ) storing image data read out from a storage medium ( ) installed into the storage medium installation section ( ), a display section ( ) displaying the image data stored in the memory section ( ) and a control section ( ) for repeatedly executing display of the image data stored in the memory section ( ) at the display section ( ).

Image display apparatus for efficiently implementing the redundant display of images

The invention provides an information providing apparatus and method by which the amount of data to be transmitted when data of a program table composed of characters and images or the like are to be transmitted is reduced and it is made possible to cope with a change in contents of data rapidly. Data of an electronic program guide to be provided is hierarchized into data (A1 data) which may possibly be changed such as the broadcasting date, the start time and the end time, data (A2 data) which are not changed at all such as a program name, and data (A3 data) composed of still pictures, moving pictures, voice and so forth which have comparatively large data amounts, and for each medium, data of a hierarchy suitable for the medium is provided. Each A3 data is referred to by one or a plurality of A2 data, and each A2 data is referred to by one or a plurality of A1 data.

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Tokyo, Japan

Toshiya Kaihoko