Small-screen movie-watching using a viewport

• US 10,056,114 B2
• Filed: 03/04/2017
• Issued: 08/21/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Colby Nipper PLLC
• Inventors: Austin, Darren Mark, Elmieh, Baback, Sweetland, Douglas Paul, Collins, Brian M., Oftedal, Mark Jason, Pinkava, Jan J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Thai
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wendmagegn, Girumsew
• Application Number:
  US15/449,931
• Publication Number:
  US 20170178690A1
• Time in Patent Office: 535 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1637 Sensing arrangement for detection of housing movement or orientation, e.g. for controlling scrolling or cursor movement on the display of an handheld computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/64 Three-dimensional objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/007 reproducing continuously a part of the information, i.e. repeating
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/102 Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers access by moving the head G11B3/08, G11B5/54, G11B7/085, G11B21/022; by moving the record carrier G11B15/005, G11B17/005, by driving of both record carrier and head G11B15/1816
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/30 on the same track as the main recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4333 Processing operations in response to a pause request
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440245 the reformatting operation being performed only on part of the stream, e.g. a region of the image or a time segment
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4728 for selecting a Region Of Interest [ROI], e.g. for requesting a higher resolution version of a selected region
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8583 by creating hot-spots

Abstract

This document describes techniques and apparatuses for small-screen movie-watching using a viewport. These techniques enable viewers to experience movies and other media programs using a small screen as a viewport to the movie rather than dramatically compressing or cropping the movie to fit the small screen. A viewer may select whatever portion of the movie imagery he or she desires to experience through the small screen at a size sufficient to perceive details of plot elements and an environment in which the plot elements interact. Thus, the viewer may follow plot elements central to the plot while also exploring the environment that provides context for these plot elements.

Claims

1. A small-screen media-consumption device comprising:

a display;

a viewport-orientation mechanism;

one or more computer processors; and

computer-readable storage media, the computer-readable storage media having instructions thereon that, in response to execution by the one or more computer processors, performs operations comprising;

determining, based on a screen size of the display and on an intended distance from an intended screen to a viewer of a movie, a fraction of the movie to present through a viewport on the display, the fraction representing a portion of an image size of images of the movie;

presenting the fraction of the movie through the viewport on the display;

receiving viewport orientations from the viewport-orientation mechanism, the viewport orientations selecting presentation, through the viewport, of plot elements central to a plot of the movie or an environment of the plot elements; and

when the selections present the plot elements, continuing the plot of the movie and when the selections present the environment;

ceasing to continue the plot of the movie;

or

repeating the plot of the movie until the viewport orientations select presentation of the plot elements, and, on selection of the plot elements, repeating presentation of the plot elements not previously viewed through the viewport.

2. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein the viewport orientations received through the viewport-orientation mechanism includes tilting, turning, pushing away, pulling toward, moving up, moving left, moving right, or moving down the display.

3. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein ceasing to continue the plot of the movie pauses the plot elements until the viewport includes at least one of the plot elements.

4. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein repeating the plot of the movie repeats the plot elements until the viewport includes at least one of the plot elements.

5. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein when the selections present the environment, a scene in the movie or a subset of the scene is looped effective to present moving images of the environment.

6. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 5, wherein when the selections to present the plot elements follow immediately after presenting moving images of the environment, the scene or the subset of the scene having the plot elements is repeated prior to continuing the plot of the movie.

7. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein determining the fraction of the movie to present through the viewport is further based on an intended aspect ratio for the movie.

8. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 7, wherein the movie is a theatrically released motion picture, and the intended screen size is a theater screen size of an era in which the movie was released or the intended aspect ratio is a theater aspect ratio of the era in which the movie was released.

9. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 7, wherein the movie is a television program, and the intended screen size is a television screen size of an era in which television program was released or the intended aspect ratio is a television aspect ratio of the era in which the television program was released.

10. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein determining the fraction of the movie to present through the viewport based on the intended distance from the intended screen to the viewer of the movie is based on the intended distance being a movie-theater distance and the intended screen being a movie screen.

11. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, wherein determining the fraction of the movie to present through the viewport is further based on an image resolution of the movie and a display resolution of the display.

12. The small-screen media-consumption device as recited in claim 1, further comprising, when presenting the environment without presenting one of the plot elements in a same scene as the environment, ceasing to present audio previously indicated as an audio element central to the plot.

13. One or more computer-readable storage devices comprising processor-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by one or more processors, perform a method comprising:

presenting, through a user interface, scenes of a movie, each of the scenes having visual elements that are potentially central to a plot of the movie;

enabling selection, through the user interface, of one or more of the visual elements to provide selected visual elements; and

responsive to selection of the selected visual elements, annotating the movie sufficient to indicate that the selected visual elements are central to the plot of the movie, the annotating enabling subsequent playback of the movie to cease to continue the plot responsive to the selected visual elements not being presented through a viewport in which the movie is presented or to return to the plot responsive to the selected visual elements later being presented through the viewport.

14. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the movie is a theatrically released motion picture or a television program.

15. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

enabling selection of one or more audio elements to provide selected audio elements; and

responsive to selection of the selected audio elements, annotating the movie sufficient to indicate that the selected audio elements are central to the plot of the movie.

16. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

enabling selection of a resolution for one of the scenes; and

responsive to selection of the resolution, annotating the movie with the resolution, the annotating with the resolution usable to determine a fraction of the movie to be shown in the viewport.

17. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

enabling selection of a fraction to be shown in the viewport for one of the scenes and for a size of the viewport; and

responsive to selection of the fraction, annotating the movie with the fraction, the annotating with the fraction usable to determine a portion of the movie to be shown in the viewport having the size.

18. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, further comprising selecting other visual elements using an object recognition algorithm and wherein annotating the movie annotates the selected other visual elements.

19. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, further comprising selecting other visual elements using a facial recognition system and wherein annotating the movie annotates the selected other visual elements.

20. The computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 19, wherein selecting the other visual elements using the facial recognition system is based on audio dialog of actors associated with one or more faces found using the facial recognition system.