Consumer electronics appliances with shared memory

摘要

An apparatus with two consumer electronics appliances integrated in one housing comprises a memory (3), which is used by both appliances. The apparatus is for example a television set with an integrated DVD player. Because the DVD player needs a considerable amount of RAM memory for processing digital data according to the MPEG-2 standard, this memory (3) can be used by the television set, when the DVD player is not operating. In a preferred embodiment, the memory (3) is used by the television set for teletext or electronic program guide operation. By allowing the resident memory (3) to be accessed by other peripherals, when the DVD functions are not used, low-cost features may be integrated in the apparatus with little or no memory investment. In a further embodiment, the shared memory is used for additional video applications, and in another preferred embodiment, the apparatus comprises a connection to a telephone line and the shared memory is used for digital voice recorder applications.