Method of and apparatus for synchronizing interactive contents

Abstract

A method of and apparatus for synchronizing interactive contents. The apparatus includes a synchronized multimedia element determining unit and an application program interface (API). The synchronized multimedia element determining unit determines whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with audio video (AV) contents. The API transmitting unit transmits an API corresponding to an interactive control command to an AV contents reproducing engine that reproduces the AV contents and a synchronized multimedia element reproducing engine that reproduces multimedia elements that are determined by the synchronized multimedia element determining unit to be synchronized with the AV contents.

1 . A method of synchronizing interactive contents, the method comprising:
 receiving contents including interactive contents and audio visual (AV) contents from one of a storage medium and a distributed network;   parsing and interpreting the interactive contents, and determining whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with the AV contents; and   transmitting an application program interface (API) corresponding to an interactive control command to an AV contents reproducing engine that reproduces the AV contents and a synchronized multimedia element reproducing engine that reproduces multimedia elements that are determined to be synchronized with the AV contents, such that the multimedia elements are synchronized and mixed with the AV contents for a visual display on a screen of a display device.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the AV contents are digital versatile disk (DVD) contents and the interactive contents are expressed by a markup document and/or are resources referred to in the markup document. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the interactive contents are expressed by a markup document including information about whether the multimedia elements are synchronized with the AV contents, and the information included in the markup document to indicate whether the multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with the AV contents are in the forms of meta tags, newly defined tags, newly defined attributes, scripts, or binary data. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the determining whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with AV contents comprises:
 parsing the interactive contents that are expressed by the markup document and creating a document object model (DOM) tree; and   interpreting the DOM tree created by the interactive contents parsing unit and determining whether elements in each node of the created DOM tree are multimedia elements that are synchronized with the AV contents.   
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the interactive control command is a play command, a stop command, a previous screen view command, or a next screen view command, and the synchronized multimedia element reproducing engine is a plug-in player. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the plug-in player is a media player, a flash player, or a real player. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the multimedia elements include audio files, real moving picture files, and animation moving picture files that are reproduced in the media player, the flash player or the real player. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the transmitting an API comprises:
 receiving the interactive control command that represents the play command, the stop command, the previous screen view command, or the next screen view command from a user; and   transmitting the API corresponding to the received interactive control command to an AV contents reproducing engine that reproduces the AV contents and a synchronized multimedia reproducing engine that reproduces the audio files, the real moving picture files, and the animation moving picture files that are determined to be the multimedia elements synchronized with the AV contents.   
   
   
       9 . A method of synchronizing and reproducing interactive contents, the method comprising:
 receiving AV/interactive contents including interactive contents and audio visual (AV) contents from a storage medium and/or a distributed network;   determining whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with audio visual (AV) contents and transmitting an application program interface (API) corresponding to an interactive control command;   receiving the transmitted API and reproducing the AV contents, via an AV contents reproducing engine, according to the received API; and   receiving the transmitted API and reproducing the multimedia elements, via a synchronized multimedia reproducing engine, that are determined to be synchronized with the AV contents, such that the multimedia elements are synchronized and mixed with the AV contents for a visual display on a screen of a display device.   
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the storage medium represents a DVD read-only-memory (DVD-ROM) or a compact disk ROM (CD-ROM), and the distributed network represents the Internet. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the determining whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with AV contents comprises parsing the interactive contents included in the read AV/interactive contents. 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising buffering the read AV/interactive contents after the AV/interactive contents are received from one of the storage medium and/or the distributed network. 
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the determining whether multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with AV contents comprises parsing and interpreting the interactive contents included in the buffered AV/interactive contents and determining whether the multimedia elements included in the interactive contents are synchronized with the AV contents. 
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising reproducing multimedia elements that are determined not to be synchronized with the AV contents. 
   
   
       15 . A method of synchronizing a data stream performed by a processor of a reproducing apparatus, the method comprising:
 receiving a data stream;   parsing the data stream into AV contents and interactive contents;   identifying the interactive contents to correspond to synchronized interactive contents which are synchronized with the AV contents, and non-synchronized interactive contents which are not synchronized with the AV contents;   receiving a navigation control command from a user, via an input device; and   selectively decoding the AV contents and the synchronized interactive contents, via a reproducing engine, based on the identification of the synchronized interactive contents for a visual display on a screen of a display device, such that the AV contents and the synchronized interactive contents are concurrently navigable in response to the navigation control command.   
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 selectively decoding the non-synchronized interactive contents.   
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the selectively decoding comprises utilizing an application program interface (API) corresponding to the navigation control command to selectively decode the AV contents and the synchronized interactive contents. 
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising:
 buffering the received data stream to allow more stable reproduction of the AV contents and the interactive contents of the data stream.   
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the AV contents are obtained from a digital versatile disc (DVD). 
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the interactive contents allow users to control the DVD AV contents based on enhanced navigation (ENAV) commands. 
   
   
       21 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the selectively decoding is controlled so that the synchronized interactive contents are navigable in the same way as the AV contents in response to the navigation control command. 
   
   
       22 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the interactive contents comprise a markup document including information that controls the selective decoding of the AV contents and multimedia elements in the interactive contents. 
   
   
       23 . The method of  claim 22 , wherein the selectively decoding further comprises:
 creating a document object model (DOM) tree from the parsed interactive contents; and   identifying each node of the DOM tree representing the multimedia elements that are synchronized with the AV contents.   
   
   
       24 . The method of  claim 23 , further comprising:
 identifying a plug-in player corresponding to the multimedia elements that are synchronized with the AV contents,   wherein the plug-in player is used to selectively decode the multimedia elements that are synchronized with the AV contents.