Digital information recording medium, digital information recording and reproducing apparatus and recording and reproducing method thereof

A reproducing apparatus which reproduces video data from a recording medium which comprises:

• an audio and video recording region defined between a lead-in region and a lead-out region, the audio and video recording region having a management information recording region on which rewritable management information is recorded, and an object group recording region on which rewritable video objects are recorded;
• each of the video objects comprising video object units, the video object units being respectively multiplexed with an RDI pack, a video pack and an audio pack to form a pack sequence, the RDI pack storing therein navigation data for navigating the video packs being arranged at the front of the pack sequence, and the video pack storing video data belonging to a video elementary stream defined in the H.264;
• and
• the management information recording region including a video manager which manages the video object, the video manager including stream information describing video attributes in which the video elementary stream is coded in a coding format defined in an H.264, the video manager including video object information having describing a seamless flag and a seamless extension flag specifying that the video objects are continuously and seamlessly reproduced for each of the video objects, and a combination of the seamless flag and the seamless extension flag allows a two-level seamless playback, the apparatus comprising:
• a reproducing unit which search the recording medium to read a video manager from the management information recording region, and read the video object from the object group recording region on the basis of this video manager;
• a de-multiplexing unit which de-multiplexes the video object unit to separate it into a video elementary stream and an audio elementary stream;
• a video buffer which stores the video elementary stream;
• a video decoder which decodes the video elementary stream output from this video buffer to output the stream as a frame picture row;
• an output unit which converts the frame picture row into a video signal to output the signal;
• and
• a control unit which controls the video elementary stream to the video buffer in accordance with the seamless flag and the seamless extension flag.

A reproduction method for reproducing video data from a recording medium which comprises:

• an audio and video recording region defined between a lead-in region and a lead-out region, the audio and video recording region having a management information recording region on which rewritable management information is recorded, and an object group recording region on which rewritable video objects are recorded;
• each of the video objects comprising video object units, the video object units being respectively multiplexed with an RDI pack, a video pack and an audio pack to form a pack sequence, the RDI pack storing therein navigation data for navigating the video packs being arranged at the front of the pack sequence, and the video pack storing video data belonging to a video elementary stream defined in the H.264;
• and
• the management information recording region including a video manager which manages the video object, the video manager including stream information describing video attributes in which the video elementary stream is coded in a coding format defined in an H.264, the video manager including video object information having describing a seamless flag and a seamless extension flag specifying that the video objects are continuously and seamlessly reproduced for each of the video objects, and a combination of the seamless flag and the seamless extension flag allows a two-level seamless playback, the method comprising:
• searching the recording medium to read a video manager from the management information recording region, and read on the basis of this video manager the video object from the object group recording region;
• de-multiplexing the video object unit to separate the video object unit into a video elementary stream and an audio elementary stream to store the video elementary stream;
• storing the video elementary stream;
• decoding the video elementary stream output from this video buffer to output the stream as a frame picture row;
• converting the frame picture row into a video signal to output the signal;
• and
• controlling the video elementary stream to the video buffer in accordance with the seamless flag and the seamless extension flag.

A recording apparatus comprising:

• an encoder which converts an audio signal and a video signal into an audio stream and a video elementary stream coded with the H.264;
• a multiplexer unit which stores the audio stream in an audio pack, stores the video elementary stream in a video pack to multiplex the audio pack and the video pack, and creates a video object unit in which an RDI pack for navigating a multiplexed pack sequence is arranged at the front;
• a formatter which defines video objects which are respectively constituted of one or more video object units and which includes stream information and video object information to create a video manager which manages the video objects, wherein video attributes showing that the video elementary stream is coded with the coding format defined in the H.264 are described in the stream information, the video object information describes a video object type in which a seamless flag and a seamless extension flag are described which show that the video object can be continuously and seamlessly reproduced for each of the video objects, with the result that the formatter creates a video manager in which two levels of seamless playback are guaranteed with the combination of the seamless flag and the seamless extension flag;
• a recording control unit which records the video manager and the video objects on a recording medium comprising an audio and video recording region defined between lead-in and lead-out regions, the audio and video recording region including a rewritable management information recording region and a rewritable object group recording region;
• wherein the video manager is recorded on the management information recording region while the video objects are recorded on the object group recording region.

A recording method comprising the steps of:

• encoding an audio signal and a video signal into an audio stream and a video elementary stream coded with the H.264;
• storing the audio stream into an audio pack and storing the video elementary stream into a video pack to multiplex the audio pack and the video pack, thereby creating an RDI pack for navigating a multiplexed pack sequence in the video object unit which is arranged at the front;
• formatting for defining two or two video objects respectively comprising one or more video object units, and creating a video manager which includes stream information and video object information and manages the video objects, wherein video attributes showing that the video elementary stream is coded with the coding format defined with the H.264 are described in the stream information, the video object information described a video object type in which a seamless flag and a seamless extension flag are described which show that the video objects can be continuously and seamlessly reproduced for each of the video objects, with the result that two levels of seamless playback are guaranteed with a combination of this seamless flag and the seamless extension flag;
• recording the video manager and the video objects on a recording medium comprising an audio and video recording region defined between lead-in and lead-out regions, the audio and video recording region including a rewritable management information recording region and a rewritable object group recording region, wherein the video manager is recorded in the management information recording region, and the video objects are recorded on the object group recording region.