Method and apparatus for augmenting media content

• US 10,419,818 B2
• Filed: 08/21/2017
• Issued: 09/17/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gopalan, Raghuraman, Begeja, Lee, Gibbon, David Crawford, Liu, Zhu, Reibman, Amy Ruth, Renger, Bernard S., Shahraray, Behzad, Zavesky, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Flynn, Randy A
• Application Number:
  US15/681,819
• Publication Number:
  US 20170359622A1
• Time in Patent Office: 757 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/40 in video content extracting overlay text G06V20/62; video retrieval G06F16/70; processing of video elementary streams in video servers H04N21/234; processing of video elementary streams in video clients H04N21/44
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/41 Higher-level, semantic clustering, classification or understanding of video scenes, e.g. detection, labelling or Markovian modelling of sport events or news items segmenting video sequences G06V20/49
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/174 Facial expression recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/231 Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/233 Processing of audio elementary streams monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2353 specifically adapted to content descriptors, e.g. coding, compressing or processing of metadata
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/242 Synchronization processes, e.g. processing of PCR [Program Clock References] arrangements for synchronising broadcast or distribution via plural systems in broadcast distribution systems H04H20/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44218 Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face expression during a TV program methods or arrangements for recognising human body or animal bodies or body parts G06V40/10; methods or arrangements for acquiring or recognising human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions G06V40/16; methods or arrangements for recognising movements or behaviour G06V40/20; arrangements for identifying users in broadcast systems H04H60/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4542 Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4667 Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections
• 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 21/8106 involving special audio data, e.g. different tracks for different languages
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 : Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8405 : represented by keywords
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 : involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/858 : Linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object, by creating a hotspot

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, generating narrative descriptions corresponding to visual features, visual events, and interactions there between for media content, where the narrative descriptions are associated with time stamps of the media content, and presenting the media content and an audio reproduction of the narrative descriptions, wherein the audio reproduction is synchronized to video of the media content according to the time stamps. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a processing system including a processor, from a server, a media content item, a first portion of filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, and a second portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, wherein the first portion includes a non-shortened description of a feature of the media content item and the second portion includes a shortened description of the feature of the media content item, and wherein the shortened description occupies a smaller memory space than the non-shortened description; and

presenting, by the processing system, the media content item, the first portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, and the second portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item via an application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, to the server, visual capabilities of a user viewing the media content item.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtered descriptions are generated from narrative descriptions associated with the media content according to the visual capabilities of the user of the media content item.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions are further generated according to requirements of the application.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions are associated with time stamps of the media content item.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions are further generated according to visual features and visual events associated within images in the media content item.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the visual events associated with the images are determined based on interactions between the visual features associated with the images.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtered description includes emotional states in the media content item that are determined by recognizing facial expressions of persons in visual features associated with the media content item.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein the filtered description is further generated according to second requirements of the application.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions comprise natural language descriptions of visual features and visual events associated with images in the media content item.

11. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions are further generated according to audio information extracted from audio content of the media content item.

12. The method of claim 3, wherein the narrative descriptions are further generated according to mood information extracted from lighting characteristics of the media content item.

13. A communication device, comprising:

a processing system including a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

receiving, from a server, a media content item, a first portion of filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, and a second portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, wherein the first portion includes a non-shortened description of a feature of the media content item and the second portion includes a shortened description of the feature of the media content item, and wherein the shortened description occupies a smaller memory space than the non-shortened description; and

presenting the media content item, the first portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item, and the second portion of the filtered descriptions associated with the media content item via an application.

14. The communication device of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise providing, to the server, visual capabilities of a user viewing the media content item, wherein the filtered descriptions are generated from narrative descriptions associated with the media content according to the visual capabilities of the user of the media content item.

15. The communication device of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a third portion of the media content item from the server, wherein the third portion is extracted from the media content item and corresponds to a first narrative description of the narrative descriptions that substantially matches a target event description of target event descriptions; and

presenting the third portion of the media content item via the application.

16. The communication device of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

comparing narrative descriptions associated with the media content item to an objectionable event description; and

censoring a third portion of the media content item corresponding to a first narrative description that substantially matches the objectionable event description.

17. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

filtering narrative descriptions associated with a media content item, according to visual capabilities of a user viewing the media content item at a device, to generate filtered descriptions;

determining if a non-shortened description of a feature in the narrative descriptions has been provided in a first portion of the filtered descriptions;

replacing the non-shortened description of the feature with a shortened description of the feature in a second portion of the filtered descriptions responsive to determining that the non-shortened description has been provided in the first portion, wherein the shortened description of the feature occupies a smaller memory space than the non-shortened description of the feature; and

transmitting the media content item and the second portion of the filtered descriptions to the device for presentation via an application.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise determining the visual capabilities of the user viewing the media content item at the device, wherein the shortened description of the feature occupies a smaller memory space than the non-shortened description of the feature.