The invention provides an image information conversion apparatus and method by which picture quality deterioration caused by setting of an initial value can be prevented when code amount control in MPEG4 image coding is performed based on information extracted from MPEG2 image compression information. A digital sound storage device connection port, electrically connected to the speaker, is formed in the recess. A distal end segment of the steam tube is inclined with respect to the horizontal when the system is mounted to a duct to cause condensation within the steam tube to drain back to the source of steam under the force of gravity. In the three or more silicon thin-film layers, the silicon thin-film layers adjacent to each other have different conductivity types. A region candidate is redetermined using an image having resolution which is higher than the subtractive color image. A host device switches to an interface driver for supporting only the read operation of the nonvolatile memory when determining to recognize as read only memory based on information acquired from the external storage device.