Patent ID: 7461082

Claim:
A moving image reproduction apparatus comprising: a moving image reproduction unit configured to reproduce a moving image; a metadata reproduction unit configured to reproduce metadata, which is relevant to the moving image; and a user interface configured to receive an instruction of reproduction from a user, wherein the metadata is configured with one or more access units being data units aligned with each other with respect to time, each of the access units includes, object area data describing a spatio-temporal region of an object that appears in the moving image, first data to specify an effective period of the object region data with respect to a time axis of the moving image, and second data including one or both of data to specify a display method relevant to the spatio-temporal region and data to specify a processing to be performed when the spatio-temporal region is specified, the object area data includes sub-planar area data expressing a plurality of sub-planar areas, and superposition data to superpose the plurality of sub-planar areas on the basis of an assembly logical operation, and the metadata reproduction unit, within an effective period that is specified by the first data, is configured to call a plurality of the sub-planar area data and the superposition data, express the object area in the moving image by superposing the plurality of sub-planar area data on the basis of the assembly logical operation of the superposition data, and when reproduction of the object area is instructed through the user interface, perform the display or the processing that is specified by the second data.