Patent ID: 6115537
Filing Date: 2000-09-05
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A digital signal recording and reproducing apparatus that receives a digital signal as transmission packets in MPEG format, the input digital signal being recorded onto a recording medium as recording packets in a predetermined recording packet format, said apparatus having a recording system and reproducing system,said recording system comprising:auxiliary signal generating means for generating an auxiliary signal as auxiliary signal transmission packets in the MPEG format, based on the input digital signal;recording signal conversion means for forming a first group from p transmission packets, dividing the first group into m first synchronous blocks, where p and m are different integers greater than one, and adding a synchronous block header to each of the m synchronous blocks, so as to form m recording packets, the synchronous block header including an identification flag indicating whether the recording packets relates to the transmission packets or the auxiliary signal transmission packets, and forming a second group from the p auxiliary signal transmission packets, dividing the second group into m second synchronous blocks, and adding the synchronous block header to each of the m synchronous blocks, so as to form the m recording packets; andrecording means for adding ID information indicating a position in the recording medium to the recording packets formed by said recording signal conversion means, and recording signals of said recording packets with the ID information onto said recording medium; andsaid reproducing system comprising:a reproduction signal processing means for reading out a reproduction signal from said recording medium, reconstructing said recording packets from said reproduction signal and rearranging the recording packets in accordance with said ID information in the same order as on the recording medium;detecting means for detecting said identification flag in said reconstructed recording packets to determine whether said recording packet relates to one of said digital signal and said auxiliary signal; andsignal reconstruction means for reconstructing one of said p transmission packets and said p auxiliary signal transmission packets in said MPEG format from the rearranged m reconstructed recording packets in accordance with said identification flag detected by said detecting means, said identification flag selecting between said digital signal and said auxiliary data in said recording packet.