Download control device
When download operations get started in unison in conformity to RSS metafile delivery time-and-date information, the traffic is temporarily concentrated to a server, resulting in the risk of a system failure or else. In addition, it is inevitable to periodically check whether an RSS file on Web server is updated or not; so, users must delete update-unnecessary RSS files from those objects to be monitored. In view of this, the periodical update check timing of download control information is dispersed, thereby scattering download requests to the server. The download control information is provided with the information indicating whether such download control information is put under update management and/or expire time-and-date information in case the update management is to be done, whereby an information processing apparatus performs, based on the information, erase processing of the download control information when the download processing is completed.
1 . A content downloading method of a download apparatus, comprising the steps of:
storing a first content and download control meta information;
acquiring, by a network interface, download control meta information from a content server which includes at least
update check information indicating whether or not an update to the download control meta information is checked,
first address information by which the content server can address the first content, and
first content size information indicating a data size of the first content;
storing the download control meta information and a first content;
in a case where the update check information indicates to check for an update to the download control meta information, checking whether the download control meta information has been updated;
when the download control meta information has been updated and when information of a second content has been added in the updated download control meta information, downloading the second content from the external server based on the updated download control meta information;
while downloading the second content, displaying a degree of progress of the downloading; and
storing the downloaded second content.
2 . The content download method according to claim 1 ,
wherein the first address information and the second address information are described in URL (Uniform Resource Locator) format.
3 . The content downloading method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
deleting the first content and/or the download control meta information used for downloading the first content after downloading the second content.
4 . The content downloading method according to claim 1 ,
wherein the download control meta information further includes expiration time information indicating a time of whether or not the update check information is checked.
5 . The content downloading method according to claim 4 , further comprising the step of:
deleting the download control meta information used for downloading the first content after downloading the first content, in a case where the expiration time information indicates that present time is past the time or the time is a specific value.
6 . The content downloading method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
reproducing the second content after downloading the second content from the content server.
7 . The content downloading method according to claim 1 ,
wherein the download control meta information is described in RSS (RDF Site Summary) format.
8 . The content downloading method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
setting up a time cycle for checking whether the download control meta information has been updated.
9 . The content downloading method according to claim 8 , further comprising the step of:
adding a random number to a start time, calculated by the time cycle, for checking.