Patent ID: 8204358

Claim:
An apparatus for generating an automatic reproduction control file, which is used when at least one of a first data file including an image signal, a second data file including an audio signal and a third data file including an image signal and an audio signal is automatically reproduced, said apparatus comprising: a controller for generating the automatic reproduction control file in which an information for automatically reproducing a part or all of the first data file, the second data file and the third data file is described, wherein in the automatic reproduction control file, file designating information, which indicates the data file to be automatically reproduced, is sequentially described in at least one group, and a group identifier designating each of the at least one group is described such that a plurality of groups having the same group identifier do not exist in the same automatic reproduction control file, wherein, in case that a plurality of groups exists, the automatic reproduction control file is generated such that the file designating information of an n-th group of the plurality of groups is automatically positioned between a group identifier of the n-th group and a group identifier of an (n+1)th group, and wherein the n-th group includes a time information related to a reproduction time when the data file included in the n-th group is automatically reproduced.