Method and apparatus for simplifying the access of metadata

• US 20020198864A1
• Filed: 05/23/2002
• Published: 12/26/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital CE Patent Holdings SAS (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Li, Hui, Ostermann, Ralf, Blawat, Meinolf, Winter, Marco
• Granted Patent: US 7,295,755 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2562 DVDs [digital versatile discs]; Digital video discs; MMCDs; HDCDs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/329 on a disc [VTOC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 on discs or drums

Abstract

Available storage media capacity for personal video recording increases continuously. metadata can be used to organize the recordings, search for content and access specific recordings. If metadata are embedded within the multimedia content itself, like DVB specific Service Information, which are multiplexed with the audio and video streams to form a MPEG-2 transport stream, a search based on this metadata would require an inefficient and time consuming search through all multimedia content stored. According to the invention metadata information is gathered, analyzed and processed to form metadata entities, which are amended by a reference to the content itself. A descriptor stream is formed from the resulting pairs of metadata entities and references to the content and is stored separately from the files comprising multimedia content. In this way, for data of an MPEG-2 transport stream the metadata can be accessed without a need to reparse the entire stream.

Claims

1. Method for simplifying the access of metadata, which are associated with a file comprising multimedia data or a part of said file, especially for describing the content of said multimedia data and/or searching said file or file part among a plurality of files comprising multimedia data, wherein the metadata are originally multiplexed with said multimedia data, characterized in

extracting the metadata from the multimedia content multiplex;

gathering the extracted metadata;

analyzing the gathered metadata to form metadata entities;

amending the metadata entities by a reference to the content itself;

forming a descriptor stream from the resulting pairs of metadata entities and references to the content;

storing said descriptor stream separately from the files comprising multimedia content.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein the files or file parts comprising multimedia content are recorded on a storage medium and wherein the metadata are used for addressing said recorded files or file parts.

3. Method according to claim 2, wherein the processing of the metadata is performed during the recording process of the files or file parts.

4. Method according to claim 2, wherein the processing of the metadata is performed in an offline pass after the recording process.

5. Method according to claim 1, wherein the metadata extracted from the multimedia content multiplex are completed by metadata retrieved from another source.

6. Method according to claim 1, wherein the metadata extracted from the multimedia content multiplex are supplemented by inputs from the user, e.g. using a keyboard.

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein said multiplex of multimedia data and metadata corresponds to a DVB compliant MPEG-2 transport stream and wherein the metadata multiplexed into the multimedia content corresponds to the DVB-SI information.

8. Apparatus for simplifying the access of metadata, which are associated with a file comprising multimedia data or a part of said file, especially for describing the content of said multimedia data and/or searching said file or file part among a plurality of files comprising multimedia data, wherein the metadata are multiplexed with said multimedia data, characterized in

means for extracting the metadata from the multimedia content multiplex;

means for gathering the extracted metadata;

means for analyzing and processing the gathered metadata to form metadata entities;

means for amending the metadata entities by a reference to the content itself;

means for forming a descriptor stream from the resulting pairs of metadata entities and references to the content;

means for storing said descriptor stream separately from the files comprising multimedia content.