Patent ID: 7519278

Claim:
A playback apparatus that plays back a text subtitle stream together with a moving picture, the playback apparatus comprising: a register set storing therein a plurality of capability flags; an inquiry unit operable to inquire of a user; and a selection unit operable to select a text subtitle stream corresponding to a predetermined language from a plurality of text subtitle streams, as a text subtitle stream to be played back, wherein the plurality of capability flags respectively correspond to a plurality of languages, wherein each flag corresponding to a language indicates whether or not the playback apparatus has a capability to process a characteristic of the corresponding language, the plurality of text subtitle streams include a text subtitle stream that has been eliminated from options for selection by the selection unit because of having, as attribute, a language whose characteristic cannot be processed by the playback apparatus, the inquiry unit inquires of a user whether the user wishes to increase a number of languages in which subtitles are displayable even if inconvenience may be caused; and in a case where the user performs an affirmative operation in response to the inquiry by the inquiry unit, the text subtitle stream that has, as attribute, the language whose characteristic cannot be processed by the playback apparatus, is included in the selection options.