Real-time captioning framework for mobile devices

• US 20050210516A1
• Filed: 01/25/2005
• Published: 09/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Media Captioning Services, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Media Captioning Services, Inc.
• Inventors: Pettinato, Richard F.
• Granted Patent: US 8,014,765 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/81
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234336 by media transcoding, e.g. video is transformed into a slideshow of still pictures or audio is converted into text
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/631 Multimode Transmission, e.g. transmitting basic layers and enhancement layers of the content over different transmission paths or transmitting with different error corrections, different keys or with different transmission protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

A system for providing caption information for one or more mobile devices includes a communication network, and one or more mobile devices connected to the communication network. The one or more mobile devices can include a cellular device, a personal digital assistant, or a wireless device. The system includes a captioning device to present caption data on a display, and a transcription device to transcribe data. The transcription device provides near real time delivery of the data transcription. The system uses the communication network to send text from the caption data to at least one of the mobile devices, while the system sends the caption data to one or more captioning devices simultaneously.

Claims

1. A system for providing near real time caption information for one or more mobile devices, the system comprising:

a communication network for communicating to the one or more mobile devices; and

a transcriber connected with the communication network, and configured for transcribing an event to generate caption data, wherein the caption data comprises transcribed data and control code data, and wherein the system is further configured for near real time transfer of the transcribed data over the communication network to the one or more mobile devices.

2. The system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the system is configured to transfer transcribed data to at least two mobile devices simultaneously.

3. The system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the communication network comprises the Internet.

4. The system in accordance with claim 1, wherein at least one mobile device comprises a display to present the transcribed data.

5. The system in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a device comprising captioning functionality and a display to present caption data.

6. The system in accordance with claim 5, further comprising a decoder to decode the caption data for presentation on the device comprising captioning functionality.

7. The system in accordance with claim 6, wherein the system is further configured for near real time transfer of the caption data to the decoder.

8. The system in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a file to save and retrieve the transcribed data sent to at least one mobile device.

9. A method for sending near real time caption information to one or more mobile devices, the method comprising:

transcribing an event to generate device-generated caption data having control codes;

removing the control codes from the caption data to produce text data; and

sending the text data to one or more mobile devices over a communication network.

10. The method in accordance with claim 9, further comprising sending the caption data to a captioning device while near-simultaneously sending the text data to the one or more mobile devices.

11. The method in accordance with claim 9, wherein the communication network comprises any one of a satellite channel, a telephony channel, an optical channel, a wireless channel, a cable channel, and an internet channel.

12. The method in accordance with claim 9, wherein the caption data comprises voice data transcribed into the text data.

13. The method in accordance with claim 9, wherein the transcribing comprises using a transcription device to add control codes to the transcribed data.

14. The method in accordance with claim 9, further comprising using the control codes to encapsulate the transcribed data.

15. The method in accordance with claim 14, sending the encapsulated data to a caption target.

16. The method in accordance with claim 15, wherein the caption target comprises a monitor or a television comprising closed-captioning functionality.

17. The method in accordance with claim 9, wherein removing control codes from the transcribed data comprises using software to remove the control codes.

18. The method in accordance with claim 9, wherein the transcribing data comprises using voice-recognition software that transcribes voice data into the text-based caption data.

19. The method in accordance with claim 9, further comprising displaying the text data on one or more mobile devices.

20. An article comprising a machine-readable medium storing instructions operable to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:

generating transcribed data from a transcription device;

sending text data from the transcribed data to a mobile device using a communication network; and

sending the transcribed data from the transcription device to a caption target, wherein the text data is sent to the mobile device and the transcribed data is sent to the caption target simultaneously, and wherein the text data is sent to the mobile device and the transcribed data is sent to the caption target in near real time.

21. The article in accordance with claim 20, wherein the transcribed data comprises control code data for the caption target, wherein the caption target comprises closed-captioning functionality.

22. The article in accordance with claim 21, further comprising removing the control code data from the transcribed data before sending the text data to the mobile device.

23. The article in accordance with claim 21, wherein sending text data from the transcribed data to the mobile device comprises sending the transcribed data with removed control code data to the mobile device.

24. The article in accordance with claim 22, wherein the removing the control code data from the transcribed data comprises software configured to remove the control code data.

25. The article in accordance with claim 21, wherein the communication network comprises a server.

26. An article comprising a machine-readable medium storing instructions operable to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:

transcribing audio data from a radio broadcast; and

sending the transcribed audio data to at least one mobile device using a communication network, wherein the sending comprises near real-time transmission of the transcribed audio data, and wherein the communication network is coupled to the at least one mobile device.

27. The article in accordance with claim 26, further comprising saving the transcribed audio data to a file, wherein the file is configured to be downloaded onto the at least one mobile device.

28. The article in accordance with claim 26, wherein the transcribing audio data comprises a transcription device.

29. The article in accordance with claim 28, further comprising using a software program to remove closed-captioning control codes from the transcribed audio data prior to sending the transcribed audio data to the at least one mobile device.

30. The article in accordance with claim 26, wherein the transcribed audio data comprises audio data transcribed into text data.