Patent ID: 7752547

Claim:
An information processing apparatus in which a plurality of information reproducing units are connected to an information processing unit via an interface to perform control of information, the information processing apparatus comprising: reproducing control means for controlling said plurality of information reproducing units; content information managing means for managing content information corresponding to contents of an information source in said plurality of information reproducing units; content information selection means for selecting any content information in said content information managing means from said information processing unit; and operation command change means for changing a handling of a content operation command from a user as a function of whether selected information reproducing units are active and whether selected reproducing units are currently reproducing different content, wherein said information processing unit records selected content information and a unit ID of one of said plurality of information reproducing units which has said content information, wherein said information processing apparatus displays said content information when no other information reproducing units are connected to said information processing unit, the displayed content information providing for selection of the content information, and wherein the information reproducing unit having the content corresponding to the content information selected is put to an active state for reproducing the content.