Method for managing play lists in an optical disk apparatus

Abstract

A method for managing play lists for playback control of data streams recorded on a rewritable optical disk. When a user selects a partial interval of a video or audio clip the total interval of which is referred to by a real play list, a virtual play list that refers to the selected partial interval is created and recorded. If a request for minimizing the clip is received, the intervals that are not referred to by the virtual play list within the clip referred to by the real play list is deleted and the real play list is marked so that the real play list is not displayed as a menu item. When a request for displaying play lists is received from a user, all the play lists except for the real play lists marked as hidden items are displayed on the play list menu screen. As a result, a repeated display of play lists referring to the same clip is prevented and users do not get confused.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.