Patent ID: 8265453

Claim:
A playback apparatus for executing playback of a subtitle stream in sync with a video stream recorded on a recording medium, the recording medium having recorded playable subtitle streams in sync with the video stream and PlayList information, the PlayList information including playback section information, a stream information table, and a display method flag, the playback section information defining a playback section with information indicating an IN time and an OUT time on a playback time axis of the video stream, the display method flag indicating whether control according to a stereoscopic subtitle display method is valid, and the stream information table specifying a pair of subtitle streams to be selected if the control according to the stereoscopic subtitle display method is valid during the playback section, the pair of subtitle streams being a subtitle stream for a right view and a subtitle stream for a left view, the playback apparatus comprising: a configuration storage that stores configuration information including stereoscopic playback capability information that indicates whether the playback apparatus has a capability of stereoscopic playback; an acquirer that acquires stereoscopic display capability information from a display device that connects to the playback apparatus, the stereoscopic display capability information indicating whether the display device has the capability of stereoscopic display; a judger that judges whether the stereoscopic playback capability information indicates that the playback apparatus has the capability of the stereoscopic playback, and that judges whether the stereoscopic display capability information indicates that the display device has the capability of the stereoscopic display; a selector that selects the pair of subtitle streams so that a stereoscopic subtitle can be displayed by the display device if the judger judges that the playback apparatus has the capability of the stereoscopic playback and judges that the display device has the capability of the stereoscopic display, and that selects one of the pair of subtitle streams so that a mono scopic subtitle can be displayed by the display device if the judger at least one of judges that the playback apparatus does not have the capability of the stereoscopic playback and judges that the display device does not have the capability of the stereoscopic display; and a player that executes playback of a selected one of the pair of subtitle streams and the one of the pair of subtitle streams in sync with the video stream.