Importance

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Abstract

A method and system for efficiently transferring data for objects on the page of a multimedia work from a CD-ROM to the memory of a computer. An application program is run on a personal computer (10) that enables an author to create a multimedia work. Certain types of objects can be selectively processed so that data for those objects are temporarily stored on a hard drive (16) as the work is being created, in a format that will reduce the time required to load the data and execute the objects when the work is subsequently played from a CD-ROM. In this technique, the sequence in which the objects on a page are required is determined and the data for each of these objects are split into a header portion and a tail portion. The header portions of the data for the objects are stored consecutively in that sequence on the hard drive, preferably followed by the tail portions of the data for the objects. This process is repeated for each of the objects on the other pages of the multimedia work. The data stored in nonvolatile memory are then transferred to a CD-ROM master and stored in the same contiguous sequence. The CD-ROM master is used to make other copies for distribution. As the work is played from a CD-ROM, the header portion of each of the objects on a page is loaded into computer memory at the time that the page is instantiated, enabling the page to appear more quickly. The tail portions of each of the objects are then loaded into the computer memory as each of the objects is called to execute. By employing this technique, less time is required for transferring the data for the objects from the CD-ROM to the computer memory before execution of the multimedia work begins, and the work executes more smoothly, since less time is required to transfer the data for each object as the object is required to execute.

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First Claim