Method and apparatus providing electronic concurrent delivery of multimedia content to general purpose computers over a computer network

• US 20020188954A1
• Filed: 06/06/2001
• Published: 12/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Center For The Profession of Teaching
• Original Assignee: National Center For The Profession of Teaching
• Inventors: Moser, Bruce A., Matous, Anthony G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,007,073 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/109
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing electronic concurrent delivery of multimedia content to general purpose computers over a computer network. A host computer having web server capabilities is coupled to a computer network and is provided with a storage medium which stores a database of multimedia experiences. The host computer is further provided with a management delivery system for managing the delivery of multimedia concepts from the host database for experiencing by a participant on a computer display device. A general purpose computer is coupled through the computer network to the host computer for downloading the delivery system over the computer network for managing the delivery of selected of the multimedia experiences from the host database to the general purpose computer for display on a computer display device. The delivery system is programmed for loading additional multimedia experiences from the host database into memory of the general purpose computer for subsequent experiencing while the participant is presently experiencing collected multimedia content from the host data base for providing seamless multimedia content display over a low bandwidth.

Claims

1. The method of providing electronic concurrent delivery of multimedia content to general purpose computers over a computer network, comprising:

storing a database of multimedia experiences in a storage medium of a host computer which is coupled to a computer network and has web server capabilities;

providing said host computer with a management delivery system for managing the delivery of multimedia content from the host database for experiencing by a participant on a computer display device; and

downloading the delivery system over the computer network into memory of a general purpose computer for managing the delivery of selected of said multimedia experiences from said host database to a general purpose computer for display on a computer display device.

2. The method of claim 1 including loading additional multimedia experiences from said host database into memory of said general purpose computer for subsequent experiencing while the participant is presently experiencing selected multimedia content from the host database for providing seamless multimedia content display.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said multimedia experiences are stored in the storage medium in the form of movie clips which have and are controlled through the use of a timeline and a play head and each timeline is subdivided into frames and each frame is broken down into a number of seconds;

the method including;

providing only one play head for each movie clip; and

permitting each play head to be on for only one instant of the timeline at any given moment whereby the play head moves forward based on the passing of time associated with each frame and thereby allowing independent parts of the delivery system to run concurrently with each other and share processor time slices.

4. An apparatus for providing electronic concurrent delivery of multimedia content to general purpose computers over a computer network, comprising:

a host computer having web server capabilities and coupled to a computer network and having a storage medium storing a database of multimedia experiences;

said host computer provided with a management delivery system for managing the delivery of multimedia content from the host database for experiencing by a participant on a computer display device; and

a general purpose computer coupled through the computer network to the host computer for downloading the delivery system over the computer network for managing the delivery of selected of said multimedia experiences from said host database to a general purpose computer for display on a computer display device.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said delivery system is programmed for loading additional multimedia experiences from said host database into memory of said general purpose computer for subsequent experiencing while the participant is presently experiencing selected multimedia content from the host database for providing seamless multimedia content display.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said multimedia experiences are stored in the storage medium in the form of movie clips which have and are controlled through the use of a timeline and a play head and each timeline is subdivided into frames and each frame is broken down into a number of seconds, only one play head is provided for each movie clip, and each play head is permitted to be on for only one instant of the timeline at any given moment whereby the play head moves forward based on the passing of time associated with each frame and thereby allowing independent parts of the delivery shell to run concurrently with each other and share processor time slices.

7. A storage medium encoded with machine-readable computer program code used in a host computer system for remote participation in online multimedia experiences by multiple participants, the storage medium programmed for loading multimedia experiences from the host database into memory of an online general purpose computer for subsequent experiencing on a display device of the general purpose computer while experiencing of selected multimedia experiences from the host database is presently occurring on the display device for providing seamless multimedia content display over a low bandwidth.