Patent ID: 7974523

Claim:
A method for decoding a stream of Video Object Units (VORUs) in a decoder to provide smooth reverse playback of a video data stream, comprising: storing at least one Video Object Unit (VOBU) from the stream of VOBUs, the at least one VOBU comprising a plurality of pictures in a buffer including at least one I reference picture, at least one P reference picture, and at least one B reference picture, scanning each of the plurality of pictures in the VOBU before decoding any pictures within the VOBU, marking positions of each picture in the VOBU, decoding all of the plurality of pictures in the VOBU, except any open Group of Pictures (GOP) pictures of the plurality of pictures, requiring reference to an adjacent VOBU, copying the open GOP pictures to the buffer, at the end of the at least one VOBU in the buffer while continuing to fetch a next VOBU, and decoding open GOP pictures at the end of the at least one VOBU in the buffer using data from the next VOBU in the buffer and open GOP pictures stored the end of the at least one VOBU in the buffer, and decoding and rendering all pictures from the stream of VOBU, including the at least one I reference picture, at least one P reference picture, and at least one B reference picture, to produce a reverse playback stream of images for display, the stream of images comprising each picture of the stream of VOBUs in reverse playback order, omitting no pictures from the reverse playback stream of images.