DISC ACCESS METHOD FOR DISTRIBUTION OF MULTIMEDIA AND VIDEO INFORMATION ACCORDING TO REQUEST VIA WIDE-AREA NETWORK

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To distribute multimedia video data from a server to plural clients connected with a communication network. SOLUTION: Even when a stripe has a variable length, previously processed videos and multimedia data packets are striped across plural disks 61 by fixed reproducing time units. For distributing plural video streams or continuous media streams, access to the disks 61 in an array 60 is simultaneously performed so that each kind of disk 61 can perform access to the videos or multimedia data for each kind of stream in applied instance. Access to the disks 61 for reading continuous media files is periodically scheduling-processed, and the cycle is made equal to the reproducing time of the stripe. A disk space is allocated by cylinder units, and the video stripe in a variable size is stored in a pack format, so that the disk storage device can be efficiently used.