Convergence-enabled dvd and web system

A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD, the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to populate a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Register (GPRM) with positional playback data, the system comprising:

• a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the information and, upon receiving a certain embedded command, writing indicia of a current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM;
• a DVD Text Data parser for receiving the information and parsing a TXTDT_MG data structure in the information to derive data containing a Universal Resource Locator (URL) therefrom;
• a browser for displaying a hyperlink corresponding to the URL and, responsive to actuation thereof, content designated by the URL;
• and
• a media player adapted for receiving the information, extracting video content from the information, and displaying the video content, wherein
• at least one of the media unit and the DVD unit is controlled by a script called from the content designated by the URL.

A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD, the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to populate a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Registers (GPRM) with positional playback data, the system comprising:

• a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the information and, upon receiving a certain embedded command, writing indicia of a current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM;
• a DVD Text Data parser for parsing a DVD Text Data Structure based on content of the GPRM to derive a Universal Resource Locators (URL) therefrom;
• a browser for displaying a hyperlink corresponding to the URL and, responsive to actuation thereof, for displaying content designated by the URL;
• and
• a media player adapted for receiving the information, extracting the DVD Text Data Structure from the information, extracting video content from the information, and displaying the video content, the video content including a button associated with the URL, the media player being responsive to a script initiated in the browser;
• wherein the browser is further for displaying content designated by the URL responsive to an actuation of the button.

A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD, the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to populate a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Registers (GPRM) associated with the DVD with positional playback data, the system comprising:

• a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the information and, upon receiving a certain embedded command, writing indicia of a current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM;
• a DVD Text Data parser for deriving a data structure from the information and, based on the content of the GPRM, parsing the information to derive a plurality of URLs therefrom;
• a browser for displaying content designated by any one of the plurality of URLs, wherein the browser displays content upon actuation of the any one URL;
• and
• a media player adapted for receiving the information, extracting video content from the information, and displaying the video content, the media player being further adapted to display a plurality of buttons, wherein each button is associated with at least one of the plurality of URLs, the association between the each button and the at least one URL being responsive to the positional playback data in the GPRM, wherein
• the displayed content designated by at least one of the plurality of URLs includes one or more features for controlling the media player.

A system for generating information representative of the contents of a standards-defined multimedia storage device, the multimedia storage device having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to populate one or more standards-defined registers:

• a reader for playing the multimedia storage device and generating information representative of the contents therein and, upon receiving a certain command embedded in the information, writing indicia of a current position of play within the contents into the one or more standards-defined registers;
• a media unit adapted to receive the information and extract a standards-defined data structure associated with the contents, and further adapted to display video content extracted from the information;
• and
• a browser for displaying content designated by Universal Resource Locators (URLs), the URLs being derived by using the standards-defined registers to index into the standards-defined data structure.