Patent ID: 7043141

Claim:
A signal encoding method, comprising the steps of: encoding a signal to produce audio data, audio manager information, audio title set information (ATSI), and table-of-contents (TOC) information; formatting the audio data, the audio manager information, the audio title set information (ATSI), and the table-of-contents (TOC) information, to arrange the audio data in an audio pack, to arrange the audio title set information (ATSI) in an area of an audio title set and to arrange the table-of-contents (TOC) information indicative of a position of the audio data in a table-of-contents (TOC) file wherein said table-of-contents (TOC) file is divided into a plurality of groups of TOC files (SAPP# 1 –#n) so that a musical composition containing the audio data will be played back on the basis of each group in said respective groups of TOC files which are independent of said audio title set information (ATSI); and outputting the audio data, the audio manager information, the audio title set information (ATSI) and the table-of-contents (TOC) information.