Patent ID: 7130476

Claim:
An information processing apparatus comprising: reading means for reading data and improvement information used for improving the quality of the data from a recording medium which stores the data and the improvement information; improvement-information requesting means for requesting another improvement information used for improving the quality of the data read by the reading means; and quality improving means for improving the quality of the data according to at least both the improvement information and the another improvement information obtained according to a request made by the improvement-information requesting means and for outputting high-quality data, wherein the data is degraded data obtained by degrading the original data, wherein the quality improving means can restore the original data from the degraded data according to at least both the improvement information and the another improvement information, wherein the data is high-order bits of the original data and the improvement information is a part of low-order bits of the original data; and wherein the quality improving means combines the high-order bits of the original data, which is the data; the part of low-order bits of the original data, which is the improvement information; and the other part of lower-order bits of the original data, which is the another improvement information, to output high-quality data having higher quality than the data.