Abstract: A video data storage system holds MPEG compressed video data on a hard disk drive. A transport decoder receives a bit-stream including the compressed audio and video data formatted as transport packets and that reformats the compressed audio and video data into respective program elementary stream (PES) packets. The system stores the audio and video PES packets onto a disk. The system also includes separate audio and video buffer memories that hold the audio and video PES packets when they are read from the disk drive. An MPEG decoder separately accesses the audio and video data from the respective audio and video buffer memories. The audio buffer memory has an amount of memory sufficient to provide the MPEG decoder with audio data representing ten seconds of decoded audio signal. In one embodiment, when a soft error occurs, the MPEG decoder continues to read and decode data from the audio buffer, but stops reading and decoding data from the video buffer.

Abstract: A remote control device for use with a plurality of devices has an exterior surface having a plurality of sides. Button groups are located on at least two sides of the plurality of sides. Each button group comprises at least one device button. A device button controls a device, indicates the status of a device, or both. At least one button group on the first side is duplicated on the second side. The remote control device also includes a cover that may be used to the button groups on one side of the remote control device when the button groups on the other side are being used. In one embodiment of the invention, the button group on the second side includes a power button, channel selection buttons and volume control buttons.