Content surfing, preview and selection by sequentially connecting tiled content channels

• US 10,455,270 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2016
• Issued: 10/22/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Saturn Licensing LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Richman, Steven Martin, Clement, Jason
• Primary Examiner(s): Spratt, Beau D
• Application Number:
  US15/070,266
• Publication Number:
  US 20170269804A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,316 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42224 Touch pad or touch panel provided on the remote control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/466 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies services using the results of monitoring in broadcast systems H04H60/61
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4823 using a channel name
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP

Abstract

A multi-window user interface (UI) is presented in various configurations and operational uses to leverage the relatively large display canvas afforded by large screen display devices such as 4K or 8K displays. Along with the various “Multiview” aspects, content delivery techniques, content selection techniques, and level of service techniques also are presented.

Claims

1. A device comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one computer memory that is not a transitory signal and that comprises instructions executable by the at least one processor to;

present on a display device a user interface (UI) comprising plural tiles each being associated with a respective content;

receive user input correlating a first tile in the plural tiles with a first source type;

responsive to the user input, associate the first tile with the first source type to associate the first tile with a first carousel associated with the first source type;

receive subsequent user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types;

establish respective carousels for each respective source type, each carousel comprising content associated with the respective source type as established by the user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types; and

after establishing the respective carousels, present plural of the carousels simultaneously on the display device for selection of content from the carousels, the source types of respective carousels comprising a computer network source type, a broadcast channel source type, and a recently viewed video source type such that a first carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from a computer network, a second carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from currently live broadcasts, and a third carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from recently viewed videos.

2. The device of claim 1, further comprising the at least one display device, the at least one display device including a high definition or ultra-high definition video display.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to scroll tiles on and off the display in a carousel format responsive to a user-input scroll command.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein second tiles in the UI represent respective TV channels, and third tiles in the UI represent one or more of:

software applications, web pages, graphical data feeds.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the UI includes two horizontally-arranged carousels of tiles, a first carousel having tiles representing underlying assets from local or cloud-based storage, and a second carousel having tiles representing underlying TV channels, the first carousel being rotatable independently of the second carousel.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the UI includes a video carousel of tiles each representing a respective video, the tiles of the video carousel being stacked vertically, with a top tile being completely shown and tiles underlying the top tile shown only at first and second edges of the tiles underlying the top tile, the top tile being an upper-most tile in the carousel that is closest to an upper edge of the display device than the other tiles in the carousel.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the UI includes a video carousel of tiles each representing a respective video, the tiles of the video carousel being depicted as being in a sequence along a Z-dimension perpendicular to the display.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the first tile becomes in screen focus by virtue of a scroll command rotating a carousel comprising the plural tiles until the first tile is in a central portion of a tiled view of the UI.

9. A method for establishing a carousel of tiles for a user interface (UI) presentable on a display, comprising:

presenting a column of tiles on the display;

receiving user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types;

establishing respective carousels for each respective source type, each carousel comprising content associated with the respective source type as established by the user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types; and

after establishing the carousels, presenting plural of the carousels simultaneously on the display device for selection of content from the carousels, the source types of respective carousels comprising a computer network source type, a broadcast channel source type, and a recently viewed video source type, the carousels being independently rotatable on screen such that a first carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from a computer network, a second carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from currently live broadcast, and a third carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from recently viewed videos.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the source types of respective carousels include a TV channel source, a web page source, a disk-based source, and a data structure recording recently viewed content.

11. The method of claim 9, comprising presenting a list of source-related carousels for selection of a carousel from the list for presentation of the selected carousel.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein first and second carousels are keyed to respective first and second time periods of a day.

13. An apparatus comprising:

at least one display;

at least one processor; and

at least one computer memory with instructions executable by the at least one processor to present plural carousels of tiles in a user interface (UI) on the display, the instructions being executable to;

receive user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types;

establish respective carousels for each respective source type, each carousel comprising content associated with the respective source type as established by the user inputs associating plural tiles with respective source types; and

after establishing the carousels, present plural of the carousels simultaneously on the display for selection of content from the carousels, the source types of respective carousels comprising a computer network source type and a broadcast channel source type, the carousels being independently rotatable on the display such that a first carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from a computer network, a second carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from currently live broadcast, and a third carousel is configured to present tiles representing content from recently viewed videos.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the instructions are executable to:

present video in a center-most tile responsive to the center-most tile being in focus by virtue of being the center-most tile.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the instructions are executable to:

present no video in tiles other than the center-most tile.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the instructions are executable to:

cause a carousel to appear to rotate responsive to a scroll command such that a center-most tile moves away from a center-most location and a second tile moves into the center-most location and becomes in focus, in which a still image is replaced with video in the second tile.