Information processing apparatus and method and recording medium

Abstract

A control machine which uses a data amount stored in a FIFO as a trigger and allows a DMA transfer to be started according to a capacity of the FIFO allows a control machine for preparing for the DMA transfer to start to prepare a command and the like for the DMA transfer. The control machine for preparing for the DMA transfer issues the prepared command to a control machine for transferring DMA data, so that a process according to the command is started. At the time of the DMA transfer, the burden on the host CPU is reduced.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 09 / 913,688 filed on Nov. 14, 2001, which is a national phase entry under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT / JP00 / 08892 filed Dec. 15, 2000, published in Japanese, which claims priority from JP 11-358634 filed Dec. 17, 1999.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The invention relates to information processing apparatus and method and a recording medium and, more particularly, to information processing apparatus and method and a recording medium which are suitable for reducing a burden of a host CPU when a DMA transfer is performed. [0003] In recent years, digital broadcast has been started in earnest and various digital broadcast receiving apparatuses have been put into practical use. Among those apparatuses, there is an apparatus having therein a storage device such as a hard disk or the like for recording the received digital broadcast program. FIG. 1 shows an ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029] The invention is made in consideration of such a situation and it is an object of the invention that by providing a register for DMA transfer and a function which can automatically set an LBA, the issuance of a command, the setting of the LBA, and the setting of transfer start timing which have conventionally been processed by a host CPU are executed on a DMA side and the burden on the host CPU as mentioned above is reduced.

[0038] As mentioned above, according to the invention, the stream of packets of the predetermined format is received, the packets which were extracted from the stream of packets received and recorded to the recording apparatus are stored, and the packets are DMA transferred to the recording apparatus in accordance with a command which was formed in the command buffer and which instructs the DMA transfer by using the packets as a block of the predetermined data amount. Thus, the burden on a host CPU is reduced.

[0039] According to the invention, the stream of packets of the predetermined format is received, the packets which were extracted from the stream of packets received and recorded to the recording apparatus are stored in the memory, and the address information for DMA transfer set by the command buffer is added every predetermined data amount (block) of the packets read out from the memory. Thus, the burden on the host CPU is reduced.

Problems solved by technology

There is a problem such that those processes become a burden on the host CPU and high performance cannot be effected.

Therefore, there is a problem such that there is a possibility that, for example, while the recording process of the AV stream is being executed, the stream cannot be continuously recorded.

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