Method of controlling repetitive reading of group of pictures (gop) data from a storage medium, and an apparatus therefor

Abstract

System and method for reproducing information represented by data (e.g., dynamic image compressed data), stored on a storage medium, in reverse order. Group of pictures (GOP) data sets read from a storage medium are stored in a memory (e.g., a stream buffer). Each GOP data set includes a plurality of pictures sequentially ordered from a first picture to a last picture, and each picture includes corresponding picture data. A given GOP data set is read from the memory multiple times in order to reproduce the pictures of the GOP data set in reverse order. In addition to the memory, one embodiment of the system includes a decoder for decoding picture data, and a memory controller coupled to the memory and the decoder. The memory controller receives a GOP data set read from the storage medium, and stores the GOP data set in the memory. The memory controller initializes a counter by storing a value equal to a total number of the pictures in the GOP data set within the counter. The memory controller repeatedly: (i) reads a number of the pictures equal to the counter value from the stream buffer in order beginning with the first picture, (ii) provides the picture data of a last predetermined number of the pictures read from the stream buffer to the decoder; and (iii) updates the value stored in the counter by subtracting the predetermined number from the value stored in the counter, until the counter value is equal to zero.