Data reception apparatus, data reception method, data transmission method, and data storage media

• US 20010018769A1
• Filed: 01/24/2001
• Published: 08/30/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsui, Yoshinori
• Application Number:
  US09/767,843
• Publication Number:
  US 20010018769A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/87
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6437 Real-time Transport Protocol [RTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A data reception apparatus is provided with a data request/reception unit for requesting media data corresponding to first and second foreground images from servers having the media data, and receiving a message from each servers; and a control data generation unit for controlling the data request/reception unit such that it issues a request message for each media data at a time by a predetermined latency time earlier than the display start time of each foreground image, on the basis of information indicating the latency time before starting display of the foreground image, which information is included in SMIL data indicating scene description. Therefore, each of the first and second foreground images can be combined with a background image and displayed at a time designated in the scene description.

Claims

1. A data reception apparatus for obtaining media data which is any of video data, audio data, and text data, and corresponds to plural elements constituting a scene, from data sources on a network, and playing the obtained media data to display the scene, said apparatus comprising:

a first reception unit for receiving location information indicating the locations of the data sources having the respective media data on the network, first time information indicating the playback start times of the respective media data, and second time information for requesting the respective media data from the corresponding data source;

a time setting unit for setting a data request time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source, at a time by a specific time set for each media data earlier than the playback start time of the media data, on the basis of the first and second time information;

a data request unit for making a request for each media data to the data source indicating by the location information, at the data request time set by the time setting unit; and

a second reception unit for receiving the media data supplied from the data source according to the request from the data request unit.

2. The data reception apparatus of

claim 1

:

wherein said first reception unit receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a latency time from when each media data is received to when the media data is played; and

said time setting unit sets the data request time for each media data, at a time by the latency time earlier than the playback start time of the media data.

3. The data reception apparatus of

claim 1

:

wherein said first reception unit receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source; and

said time setting unit sets the data request time for each media data, at the time indicated by the second time information.

4. The data reception apparatus of

claim 1

:

wherein said first reception unit receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a latency time from when each media data is received to when the media data is played; and

said time setting unit sets the data request time for each media data, at a time by the sum of the latency time and a predetermined time earlier than the playback start time of the media data.

5. The data reception apparatus of

claim 1

:

wherein said first reception unit receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source; and

said time setting unit sets the data request time for each media data, at a time by a predetermined time earlier than the time indicated by the second time information.

6. A data reception method for obtaining media data which is any of video data, audio data, and text data, and corresponds to plural elements constituting a scene, from data sources on a network, and playing the obtained media data to display the scene, said method comprising:

a first reception step of receiving location information indicating the locations of the data sources having the respective media data on the network, first time information indicating the playback start times of the respective media data, and second time information for requesting the respective media data from the corresponding data sources;

a data request step of making a request for each media data to the data source indicating by the location information, at a time by a specific time set for each media data earlier than the playback start time of the media data, on the basis of the first and second time information; and

a second reception step of receiving the media data supplied from the data source according to the request made in the data request step.

7. The data reception method of

claim 6

:

wherein said first reception step receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a latency time from when each media data is received to when the media data is played; and

said data request step makes a request for each media data to a predetermined data source, at a time by the latency time earlier than the playback start time of the media data.

8. The data reception method of

claim 6

:

wherein said first reception step receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a data request time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source; and

said data request step makes a request for each media data to the data source, at the data request time.

9. The data reception method of

claim 6

:

wherein said first reception step receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a latency time from when each media data is received to when the media data is played; and

said data request step makes a request for each media data to a predetermined data source, at a time by the sum of the latency time and a predetermined time earlier than the playback start time of the media data.

10. The data reception method of

claim 6

:

wherein said first reception step receives, as the second time information, time information indicating a data request time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source; and

said data request step makes a request for each media data to the data source, at a time by a predetermined time earlier than the data request time.

11. A data transmission method for transmitting media data which is any of video data, audio data, and text data and corresponds to plural elements constituting a scene, to a reception terminal for playing the media data to display the scene, said method comprising:

a first transmission step of transmitting location information indicating the locations of data sources having the respective media data on a network, first time information indicating the playback start times of the respective media data, and second time information for requesting the respective media data from the corresponding data sources; and

a second transmission step of transmitting the media data to the reception terminal, according to the request for the media data which is issued from the reception terminal on the basis of the first and second time information and the location information.

12. The data transmission method of

claim 11

, wherein said second time information is time information indicating a latency time from when each media data is received to when the media data is played.

13. The data transmission method of

claim 11

, wherein said second time information is time information indicating a data request time to make a request for each media data to the corresponding data source.

14. A data storage medium containing a data playback program to make a computer perform a data playback process of obtaining media data which is any of video data, audio data, and text data, and corresponds to plural elements constituting a scene, from data sources on a network, and playing the obtained media data to display the scene, said data playback program comprising:

a first program to make the computer perform a first process of receiving location information indicating the locations of the data sources having the respective media data, first time information indicating the playback start times of the respective media data, and second time information for requesting the respective media data from the corresponding data sources;

a second program to make the computer perform a second process of making a request for each media data to the data source indicating by the location information, at a time by a specific time set for each media data earlier than the playback start time of the media data, on the basis of the first and second time information; and

a third program to make the computer perform a third process of receiving the media data supplied from the data source according to the data request.

15. A data storage medium which contains a data transmission program to make a computer perform a data transmission process of transmitting media data which is any of video data, audio data, and text data and corresponds to plural elements constituting a scene, to a reception terminal for playing the media data to display the scene, said data transmission program comprising:

a first program to make the computer perform a first process of transmitting location information indicating the locations of data sources having the respective media data on a network, first time information indicating the playback start times of the respective media data, and second time information for requesting the respective media data from the corresponding data sources; and

a second program to make the computer perform a second process of transmitting the media data to the reception terminal, according to the request for the media data which is issued from the reception terminal on the basis of the first and second time information and the location information.