System and method for optimized property retrieval of stored objects

• US 20060031384A1
• Filed: 05/03/2004
• Published: 02/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sadovsky, Vladimir, Rosenbloom, Oren, Ternasky, Joseph D., Manders, Blake D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,502,820 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

A system and related techniques generate an interrogation request from an initiator device, such as a client desktop machine or other machine, to a mobile or other media player, such as a digital camera, MP3 player, video camera or other device or hardware to enumerate the media content contained in that device, along with associated properties. The collection of binary objects which encode the content, such as digital photographs, encoded audio files, digitized video or other media, may include or have associated with them a set of corresponding object properties which help to define each object, such as by defining a pixel color depth, audio codec or other property or attribute. According to embodiments of the invention, the initiator may communicate with the responding device using a media-aware protocol supporting an aggregate object property request, such that the initiator may identify one or all of the set of properties paired with all of the objects to be returned along with an enumeration of those objects. The initiator may then present, for example, a list of song titles along with the corresponding artist, track length, codec, display skins or other attributes or properties to a user, for example to select, delete, copy or otherwise manipulate the underlying objects, which may in one regard be separately retrieved from their identifier and properties. Because properties may be retrieved in conjunction with, at the same time and using a unified retrieval scheme, the need to query each object identifier one by one for associated properties is removed. The throughput and responsiveness of object property retrieval is therefore significantly enhanced.

Claims

1. A system for generating a request for retrieval of a set of media object properties, comprising:

an interface to a responder device storing a set of media objects, each of the media objects having an associated set of media object properties; and

a media engine, the media engine communicating with the interface to generate a media enumeration request comprising an aggregate object property command, the media enumeration request selectively retrieving a plurality of the media object properties associated with the set of media objects from the responder device.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the responder device comprises one of an audio player device, a digital camera device, a video camcorder device, a media-enabled cellular telephone, and a personal digital assistant.

3. A system according to claim 1, wherein the set of media objects comprises at least one of digital audio objects, digital image objects and digital video objects.

4. A system according to claim 1, wherein the set of media object properties comprises at least one of image width, image height, pixel color depth, object byte size, compression data, audio encoding type and video frame rate.

5. A system according to claim 1, wherein the communication with the responder device is communicated using a media transport protocol.

6. A system according to claim 1, wherein the retrieved media object properties and a media object list are streamed to an initiator device in response to the media enumeration request.

7. A system according to claim 6, wherein the initiator device reorders at least one of the media object properties and media object list.

8. A system according to claim 1, wherein each of the media objects comprises binary data.

9. A system according to claim 1, wherein the set of media objects is stored in a media directory of the responder device.

10. A method for generating a request for retrieval of a set of media object properties, comprising:

accessing a responder device storing a set of media objects, each of the media objects having an associated set of media object properties;

communicating a media enumeration request comprising an aggregate object property command to the responder device; and

retrieving a plurality of the media object properties associated with the set of media objects from the responder device.

11. A method according to claim 10, wherein the responder device comprises one of an audio player device, a digital camera device, a video camcorder device, a media-enabled cellular telephone, and a personal digital assistant.

12. A method according to claim 10, wherein the set of media objects comprises at least one of digital audio objects, digital image objects and digital video objects.

13. A method according to claim 10, wherein the set of media object properties comprises at least one of image width, image height, pixel color depth, object byte size, compression data, audio encoding type and video frame rate.

14. A method according to claim 10, wherein the communicating with the responder device comprises communicating using a media transport protocol.

15. A method according to claim 10, wherein the retrieving comprises streaming media object properties and a media object list to an initiator device in response to the media enumeration request.

16. A method according to claim 15, further comprising reordering at least one of the media object properties and media object list in the initiator device.

17. A method according to claim 10, wherein each of the media objects comprises binary data.

18. A method according to claim 10, wherein the set of media objects is stored in a media directory of the responder device.

19. A media object list, the media object list being generated according to a method of:

accessing a responder device storing a set of media objects, each of the media objects having an associated set of media object properties;

communicating a media enumeration request comprising an aggregate object property command to the responder device; and

retrieving a plurality of the media object properties associated with the set of media objects from the responder device in a media object list.

20. A media object list according to claim 19, wherein the responder device comprises one of an audio player device, a digital camera device, a video camcorder device, a media-enabled cellular telephone, and a personal digital assistant.

21. A media object list to claim 19, wherein the set of media objects represented in the media object list comprises at least one of digital audio objects, digital image objects and digital video objects.

22. A media object list according to claim 19, wherein the set of media object properties comprises at least one of image width, image height, pixel color depth, object byte size, compression data, audio encoding type and video frame rate.

23. A media object list according to claim 19, wherein the communicating with the responder device comprise communicating using a media transport protocol.

24. A media object list according to claim 19, wherein the retrieving comprises streaming media object properties and the media object list to an initiator device in response to the media enumeration request.

25. A media object list according to claim 24, wherein the method further comprises reordering at least one of the media object properties and the media object list in the initiator device.

26. A media object list according to claim 19, wherein each of the media objects comprises binary data.

27. A media player, the media player being configured to generate a media object list including a plurality of media object properties, comprising:

a media object store, the media object store storing a set of media objects and associated media object properties;

an interface to an initiator device, the initiator device transmitting a media enumeration request via the interface; and

control logic, the control logic responding the media enumeration request to selectively retrieve a plurality of the media object properties associated with the set of media objects from the media object store.

28. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the media player comprises one of an audio player device, a digital camera device, a video camcorder device, a media-enabled cellular telephone, and a personal digital assistant.

29. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the set of media objects comprises at least one of digital audio objects, digital image objects and digital video objects.

30. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the set of media object properties comprises at least one of image width, image height, pixel color depth, object byte size, compression data, audio encoding type and video frame rate.

31. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the communication with the initiator device is communicated using a media transport protocol.

32. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the retrieved media object properties and a media object list are streamed to the initiator device in response to the media enumeration request.

33. A media player according to claim 27, wherein each of the media objects comprises binary data.

34. A media player according to claim 27, wherein the media data store comprises a media directory.