1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium having a data structure for managing reproduction of menu data and recording reproducing apparatuses and methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a conventional DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) player capable of reproducing a DVD and providing the reproduced data for a digital television set. The player 100 of FIG. 1 comprises an optical pickup 2 reading signals recorded in a DVD 1; an analog signal processor 3 binarizing the read signals after compensating levels of the signals; a digital signal processor 4 restoring the binarized signals into digital data; a parser 5 separating the restored data into encoded video, sub-picture, and audio data; a video decoder 6 decoding the encoded video data to non-compressed original video data; a sub-picture decoder 7 decoding the sub-picture data; an audio decoder 8 decoding the encoded audio data to non-compressed original audio data; and a re-encoder 9 encoding the decoded audio and mixed data of the decoded video and sub-picture data again to audio and video streams whose format is suitable to a digital television set 200.
In the DVD player 100, the signals read by the pickup 2 are restored to original video and audio data and then re-encoded to an A/V stream acceptable to the digital TV set 200. The acceptable data stream is transmitted to the digital TV set 200, which presents the received video and audio data of the data stream through its screen and speaker, respectively.
The read and separated sub-picture data, which includes captions and menu data, are mixed, after being decoded, with the decoded original data from the video decoder 6, and are re-encoded to a TV acceptable A/V data stream. Therefore, the digital TV set 200 should be able to separate sub-picture data from the mixed video data and process it in order to present menu picture and/or captions for titles and/or chapters recorded in the DVD 1 on its screen.
However, in general, a digital TV set does not function to separate and decode sub-picture data for a menu, and present it with a background picture in still for a user's menu selection. In addition, it does not have a menu supporting function such as highlighting a specific window on a full screen according to an arbitrary selection from a user. Therefore, in order to construct a menu screen, a DVD player has to search both video data for background and sub-picture data for menu items such as highlighted box, etc.; and then decode each data, mix them, and re-encode the mixed data to produce a data stream suitable to a digital TV set.
However, such operations have a drawback that very complicated hardware is required for constructing a menu screen.
In the meantime, a reproducing/recording apparatus of a high-density recording medium such as a high-density DVD (called ‘HDVD’ hereinafter), whose recording format standard is under discussion among related companies, is most likely to be connected with a digital TV set to make a presentation of recorded high-quality moving pictures much better. Thus, a new efficient method, other than the above, is urgently required in order that titles or chapters recorded in a high-density recording medium may be selected in a menu displayed on a digital TV set.