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AssigneeWarner Home Video Inc.
InventorsChristopher J. Cookson, Lewis S. Ostrover, Warren N. Lieberfarb
Estimating the term…
A system for playing a selected one of multiple audio tracks recorded in synchronized fashion with a motion picture on an optical disk. The optical disk has encoded on it a mixing master music and effects (“M&E”) track, or a switching master M&E track. Individual audio tracks are provided for language-specific versions of the same motion picture, but these tracks have data recorded in them only where there is dialog. In this way, for many a motion picture, all tracks but masters will have data recorded for well less than half of the running time of the motion picture. When a mixing master is used, it is mixed with a language-specific track when the latter has dialog; the mixing master contains no dialog. If a switching master is used, it may contain dialog recorded with the M&E; when a language-specific track has dialog recorded in it, it also contains M&E and the track is played to the exclusion of the switching master.
A plurality of players of different types for playing identical discs but producing respective output signals having different formats and different output aspect ratios, each of said discs having digital data stored therein representing a resolution sufficiently high to satisfy the format having the highest video resolution and the digital data stored therein also representing an aspect ratio from which all of said output aspect ratios can be derived, each of said players reading the data on any inserted disc and then processing the data to generate an output signal having a respective format and output aspect ratio, all of said players comprising a processor and an output section, with each processor being adapted for reading and processing data the same way until the processing reaches the respective output section, and wherein each output section is adapted to process data from the processor differently for different type players to generate a corresponding program with its own format and aspect ratio, said different type players being substantially the same except for their output sections.
A plurality of players adapted to play identical discs and generate outputs representative of a program on the discs in different formats, said players including identical processors adapted to receive digital data from the discs and process the discs to generate data signals, each player including an output section adapted to receive said data signals and generate said output signals, each output section being adapted to generate said output signals in a predetermined format.
A system for distributing and playing a plurality of identical discs comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.