Patent ID: 8131773

Claim:
A search information managing apparatus managing search information, stored on a tangible machine-readable medium, having a tree structure corresponding to moving image contents, wherein: said search information contains a plurality of search information elements of a same type attached to a same hierarchical level of the tree structure, wherein each of said plurality of search information elements is given by a leaf of the tree structure or given by a sub-tree of the tree structure consisting of a node and an arbitrary set of leaves or nodes of lower levels linked to the node, and contains structural information corresponding to said plurality of search information elements; said apparatus comprising: a structural information compressor that removes redundant information from said structural information corresponding to said plurality of search information elements whereby to reduce a total quantity of said structural information; and a unit search information formation section that forms a unit of search information by arranging said plurality of search information elements only of the same type and corresponding said structural information compressed by said structural information compressor in accordance with a prescribed format, wherein said structural information compressor separates said structural information into shared structural information including type information shared by said plurality of search information elements or shared position information of said tree structure, and un-shared structural information other than said shared structural information; and said unit search information formation section forms a unit of search information by arranging, in addition to said arrangement of said plurality of search information elements, said shared structural information and said un-shared structural information.