Method and system for handling streaming information

• US 20050235112A1
• Filed: 04/01/2005
• Published: 10/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Lorton, Christopher W., Smirnov, Serge, Raja, Jayachandran, Parry, William G., Lee, Mingtzong
• Granted Patent: US 7,334,078 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/118
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10 Digital recording or reproducing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/10666 Ring buffers, e.g. buffers wherein an iteratively progressing read or write pointer moves back to the beginning of the buffer when reaching the last storage cell
• 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 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer

Abstract

One aspect of the present invention leads to a method of handling streaming information. The method includes receiving the streaming information and analyzing the streaming information to locate one or more points of interest in the streaming information. An index of the one or more points of interest are generated. The index is delivered to a user separate from the streaming information. Rendering of the streaming information is controlled based on the points of interest.

Claims

1. A method of handling streaming information, comprising:

receiving the streaming information;

analyzing the streaming information to locate one or more points of interest in the streaming information;

generating an index of the one or more points of interest;

delivering the index to a user separate from the streaming information; and

controlling rendering of streaming information based on the points of interest.

2. The method of claim 1 and further comprising parsing the streaming information into streams based on a type of data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the one or more points of interest in the streaming information relates to a frame in a video stream.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the one or more points of streaming information relate to a particular word.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the one or more points of interest in the streaming information relates to a voice in an audio stream.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the one or more points of interest in the streaming information relates to a word boundary, a sentence boundary or a paragraph boundary.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the index is delivered as out-of-band communication.

8. A method for handling streaming information, comprising:

receiving streaming information related to a segment of multiple streams of streaming information into a buffer;

rendering a portion of the segment; and

archiving the entire segment to a more permanent file after said portion of the segment has been rendered.

9. The method of claim 8 and further comprising:

determining a starting point of the segment.

10. The method of claim 8 and further comprising:

receiving an indication from a user to archive the entire segment after said portion of the segment has been rendered.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the segment is a television show.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein the segment includes at least two of an audio stream, a video stream and a data stream.

13. A computer readable medium encoded with a data structure having a data block format for streaming information, the data block format comprising:

a data block having a header portion and an end portion;

a first data block size field included in the header portion and indicating the size of the data block;

a second data block size field included in the end portion and indicating the size of the data block; and

a payload field bounded by the first data block size field and the second data block size field, wherein the payload field includes streaming information to be rendered.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the header portion includes a stream identification field.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the header portion includes a field indicating a location of the payload field in the data block.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the streaming information to be rendered includes a plurality of streams.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the plurality of streams include at least two of an audio stream, a video stream and a data stream.