Portable playlist

• US 20040057348A1
• Filed: 09/05/2002
• Published: 03/25/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/05/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Shteyn, Eugene, Shteyn, Vladimir
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 369/30.38
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/20 Disc-shaped record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/329 on a disc [VTOC]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A playback system and method allows for dynamic remapping of location identifiers in a playlist. An original playlist is created based on select content material located at a first set of storage locations. When the playlist is transferred to a different environment, having access to a second set of storage locations containing unknown content material, the playback device at this different environment searches the second set of storage locations for content material that corresponds to the items/songs in the playlist. If a correspondence is determined for a song in the playlist, the location identifier of the playlist for this song is updated to reflect its location in the second set of storage locations. If a correspondence is not found, the location identifier of the playlist for this song is updated to reflect a “not found” indication. Thereafter, when directed to effect a playback of the material in the playlist, the playback device will render the songs that were found at the second set of storage locations, and skip those that are marked “not found”. By dynamically updating the location identifiers of a playlist based on the available content at a given system, the playlist becomes a means for communicating a user'"'"'s preferred set of songs without actually transferring the songs. In a preferred embodiment, additional filtering criteria may be applied, in addition to the availability of the material within the current environment.

Claims

1. A playback device, comprising:

a storage that is configured to contain a plurality of stored content items, and

a processing system that is configured;

to receive a first playlist that includes a plurality of content identifiers,

to search the storage for matching content items of the plurality of stored content items, based on the plurality of content identifiers, and

to create a second playlist that includes a subset of the plurality of content identifiers having matching content items, and associated location identifiers of each of the matching content items.

2. The playback device of claim 1, wherein

the processing system is further configured to render one or more of the matching content items, based on the second playlist.

3. The playback device of claim 1, wherein

the processing system is further configured to obtain other content items from an external source,

the other content items corresponding to content identifiers of the plurality of content identifiers for which matching content items were not found in the storage of the playback device.

4. The playback device of claim 1, wherein

the content identifiers include at least one of:

a title, an artist, an author, a composer, and a CDID.

5. The playback device of claim 1, wherein

the processing device is further configured to create the second playlist based on one or more other selection criteria.

6. A playlist creation device, comprising:

a processing system that is configured;

to receive a first playlist that includes a plurality of content identifiers,

to search a storage for matching content items of the plurality of stored content items, based on the plurality of content identifiers,

to create a second playlist that includes a subset of the plurality of content identifiers having matching content items, and associated location identifiers of each of the matching content items, and

to transmit the second playlist to a playback device for subsequent rendering of the matching content items in the storage.

7. The playlist creation device of claim 6, wherein

the content identifiers include at least one of:

a title, an artist, an author, a composer, and a CDID.

8. The playlist creation device of claim 6, wherein

the processing device is further configured to create the second playlist based on one or more other selection criteria.

9. A method of facilitating playback of select content items, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of content identifiers,

searching a storage device for the select content items corresponding to some or all of the plurality of content identifiers,

creating a playlist that includes location identifiers of the select content items corresponding to some or all of the plurality of content identifiers.

10. The method of claim 9, further including

rendering at least one of the select content items, based on the playlist.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein

the content identifiers include at least one of:

a title, an artist, an author, a composer, and a CDID.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein

creating the playlist further includes

selecting the select content items based on one or more selection criteria.

13. A method of providing a broadcast of select content items, comprising

creating a playlist that includes a plurality of content identifiers of the select content items, and

broadcasting the playlist to at least one subscriber, to facilitate creation of a subset of the playlist, based on a correspondence between some or all of the content identifiers and content items that are located at a storage device of the subscriber.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein

the playlist also includes location identifiers associated with the content identifiers, to facilitate access to stored content items for content identifiers of the playlist that are not included in the subset of the playlist.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein

the content identifiers include at least one of:

a title, an artist, an author, a composer, and a CDID.