Digital multimedia jukebox

A system for receiving sets of signals in an uncompressed format stored on a removable storage device, converting the sets of signals in the uncompressed format to sets of digital signals in a compressed format, and storing the sets of digital signals in the compressed format in at least one memory device, each respective set of signals in the uncompressed format and each set of digital signals in the compressed format representing a respective audio segment, the system comprising:

• an input for connecting or reading a removable storage device and through which signals read from the removable storage device are received;
• and
• a processor coupled to a memory device and the input, the processor being programmed to:
• store in the memory device a set of signals in the uncompressed format supplied to the processor through the input,
• retrieve from the memory device a set of signals in the uncompressed format from the memory device,
• convert the set of signals in the uncompressed format that is retrieved into a set of digital signals in the compressed format,
• store the set of digital signals in the compressed format in the memory device,
• make available, for future storage, memory space in the memory device in which the set of signals in the uncompressed format was stored, after that set of signals in the uncompressed format has been converted to the set of digital signals in the compressed format, and
• retrieve a set of digital signals in the compressed format from the memory device and convert the set of digital signals in the compressed format that is retrieved into the uncompressed format suitable to be played to sound a corresponding audio segment, wherein the processor gives priority to converting a set of digital signals in the compressed format and retrieved from the memory device into a set of signals in the uncompressed format over converting a set of signals retrieved from the memory device in the uncompressed format into a set of signals in the compressed format.

A method of archiving sets of audio signals comprising:

• providing a memory device;
• dynamically partitioning the memory device into
• a first memory area for storing in the compressed format sets of audio signals,
• a second memory area for storing in a compressed format sets of audio signals that have been compressed from an uncompressed set of audio signals and that are still stored in an uncompressed format in another memory area of the memory device,
• a third memory area for storing, temporarily, in the uncompressed format the sets of audio signals stored in the compressed format in the second memory area, and
• a fourth memory area which is a free area for storing sets of audio signals without regard to format;
• under control of a processor, transferring to the memory device, from a removable storage device coupled to an input of the processor, a set of audio signals representing an audio segment, without conversion of the set of audio signals to a compressed format;
• and
• only when the processor is not controlling accessing of an audio segment stored in the memory device, retrieving a set of the audio signals transferred to the memory device without conversion to the compressed format, converting the set of audio signals retrieved into the compressed format, and storing the set of audio signals in the compressed format in the second memory area of the memory device.