Optical disc and reproduction device which can achieve a dynamic switching of the reproduced content

A reproduction apparatus for an optical disc having a data region for storing a plurality of video objects, at least one of the video objects including a video stream, a plurality of audio streams, a plurality of sub-picture streams and control information, the control information indicating at least two sets, each set indicating one of the plurality of video objects, audio streams, and sub-picture streams from the plurality of audio streams and sub-picture stream from the plurality of audio streams and sub-picture streams in one of the plurality of video objects, which are selectively reproducible simultaneously with the video stream, the apparatus comprising:

• reading means for reading a video object from the optical disc;
• a reproducing means for reproducing a video streams from the video object read from the optical disc;
• and
• a controller for controlling the reading means and the reproducing means,
• wherein the controller extracts the control information from the video object, selects one of the sets of video object, audio stream and sub-picture stream indicated by the extracted control information, controls the reading means to read the video object of the selected one of the sets from the optical disc, and controls the reproducing means to reproduce a video stream of the video object of the selected one of the sets and reproduce audio and sub-picture streams of the selected one of the sets.

A reproduction method for an optical disc having a data region for storing a plurality of video objects, at least one of the video objects including a video stream, a plurality of audio streams, a plurality of sub-picture streams and control information, the control information indicating at least two sets, each set indicating one of the plurality of video objects, audio streams, and sub-picture streams from the plurality of audio streams and sub-picture streams in one of the plurality of video objects, which are selectively reproducible simultaneously with the video stream, the method comprising the steps of:

• reading a video object from an optical disc;
• extracting the control information from the video object and storing the extracted control information in a memory of a reproduction apparatus;
• selecting one of the combinations of video object, audio stream and sub-picture stream indicated by the control information;
• and
• simultaneously reproducing the video stream of the video object of the selected one of the combinations and audio and sub-picture streams of the selected one of the sets.

A reproduction method for reproducing digital data from a source, wherein the digital data is made of a plurality of video objects which include a video stream, a plurality of audio streams, a plurality of sub-picture streams and control information, the control information indicating at least two pairs of audio stream and sub-picture stream from the plurality of audio streams and sub-picture streams, which are selectively reproducible simultaneously with the video stream, the method comprising the steps of:

• reading a video object from the source;
• extracting the control information from the video object and storing the extracted control information in a memory of a reproduction apparatus;
• selecting one of the pairs of audio stream and sub-picture stream indicated by the control information;
• and
• simultaneously reproducing the video stream and the audio stream and the sub-picture stream of the selected one of the pairs.