Apparatus and method for skipping songs without delay
First Claim
1. An apparatus for smoothly playing a pre-determined sequence of songs transmitted from a server over the Internet, the apparatus comprising a processor, a first memory that stores at least one program used by said processor to control the playing of the sequence of songs, and a second memory which is available to said at least one program for operations, wherein said at least one program causes said processor at least to:
- as soon as a song starts to play, start to download, consecutively, a first small portion of each of a number of songs which are, in the pre-determined sequence, subsequent to the song in playing, said downloaded small portions being pre-cached in a buffer which is an area in said second memory;
as soon as the user skips to a target song whose first small portion has been pre-cached, start to play the first small portion of said target song; and
at the same time start to download the rest of said target song so that as soon as the playing of the first small portion of said target song ends, start to play the rest of said target song which is being downloaded from the server over the Internet.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In an Internet based personalized radio, where a user has a pre-selected list of songs to be played in a particular order, the invention provides an apparatus and method allowing the user to skip one or more songs without having an unintended delay between skips. This is accomplished by pre-buffering the first ten seconds of each of the next several songs on the list so that, should the user choose to skip to any of the next several songs, the pre-buffered ten seconds of the target song is already available to be played. The apparatus starts to play the pre-buffered port of the target song and starts to download the rest of it at the same time. Because the initial buffering time for the rest of the target song is less than ten seconds, the target song is played smoothly.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. An apparatus for smoothly playing a pre-determined sequence of songs transmitted from a server over the Internet, the apparatus comprising a processor, a first memory that stores at least one program used by said processor to control the playing of the sequence of songs, and a second memory which is available to said at least one program for operations,
wherein said at least one program causes said processor at least to: -
as soon as a song starts to play, start to download, consecutively, a first small portion of each of a number of songs which are, in the pre-determined sequence, subsequent to the song in playing, said downloaded small portions being pre-cached in a buffer which is an area in said second memory;
as soon as the user skips to a target song whose first small portion has been pre-cached, start to play the first small portion of said target song; and
at the same time start to download the rest of said target song so that as soon as the playing of the first small portion of said target song ends, start to play the rest of said target song which is being downloaded from the server over the Internet. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A method for smoothly playing a pre-determined sequence of songs transmitted from a remote server to a local device over the Internet, comprising the steps of:
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(a) as soon as a song starts to play, downloading, consecutively, a first small portion of each of a number of songs which are, in the pre-determined sequence, subsequent to said song in playing; and
(b) pre-caching said downloaded small portions in a buffer which is an area of said local device'"'"'s memory. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A program storage medium readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform a method for smoothly playing a pre-determined sequence of songs transmitted from a remote server to a local device over the Internet, comprising the steps of:
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(a) as soon as a song starts to play, downloading, consecutively, a first small portion of each of a number of songs which are, in the pre-determined sequence, subsequent to said song in playing; and
(b) pre-caching said downloaded small portions in a buffer which is an area of said local device'"'"'s memory. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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Specification