Patent ID: 7681128

Claim:
A multimedia player capable of playing back contents, comprising: a control which acquires an instruction for playback of content via a user's manipulation; a storage which stores data for a plurality of function icons representing respective types of content playback functions, the content to be played back by the player, and data for a plurality of content icons representing respective items of contents; a network controller which detects an external appliance connected to the player via a network and acquires the items of contents to be played back from the external appliance thus detected; a display output module which outputs image data for an on-screen menu related to playback of the content to a display device and which plays back the content acquired from the storage in response to the user's instruction acquired by the control; a display controller which generates the image data for the on-screen menu with a two-dimensional array which includes a first array comprising the plurality of function icons arranged in a specific direction on a screen and which also includes a second array comprising the plurality of content icons in a direction intersecting the first array on the screen, wherein the display controller displays a plurality of device icons each representing the external appliance detected by the network controller in the second array, when one of the content playback functions is selected in accordance with the user's instruction acquired by the control, the display controller displays the content icons corresponding to the selected content playback function and representing the items of contents acquired from the storage in the on-screen menu, and when one of the device icons is selected by the user, the display controller identifies the items of contents acquired from the external appliance represented by the selected device icon and displays an expanded view within a second array of the content icons representing the identified items of contents, wherein a combination of content items from storage and icons corresponding to only the selected device are displayed in the second array.