Patent ID: 8695049

Claim:
A content switching apparatus for switching an image of a first content being broadcasted into an image of a second content recorded and including substantially the same image as the first content, comprising: a broadcast receiving unit which receives the image of the first content broadcasted through a broadcast signal; a storing unit which stores the image of the second content, a length of time of the second content being different than a length of time of the first content or a content configuration of the second content being different than a content configuration of the first content; a request receiving unit which receives a change request from a user to change a play position or a play speed during output of the first content; a position identifying unit which identifies a position of an image in the second content, the image being substantially the same as a first image of the first content; and a play control unit which determines a play starting position to start to play the second content based on the position identified by the position identifying unit, wherein when the request receiving unit receives the change request during the output of the first content, the play control unit switches the image of the first content to the image of the second content, wherein the position identifying unit identifies the position by referring to definition information defining temporal relative positions between the images of the first content and the images of the second content, wherein the first content and the second content each includes a plurality of segments, and wherein the definition information defines correspondence of a starting time of each segment between the first and second contents.