Multimedia distribution system

• US 20060129909A1
• Filed: 10/24/2005
• Published: 06/15/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sonic IP Incorporated (Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sonic IP Incorporated (Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: Bramwell, Steve R., Fudge, Brian T., Butt, Abou Ul Aala Ahsan
• Granted Patent: US 8,472,792 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/201
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10 Digital recording or reproducing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/3027 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/107 between spatial and temporal predictive coding, e.g. picture refresh
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/126 Details of normalisation or weighting functions, e.g. normalisation matrices or variable uniform quantisers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/149 by estimating the code amount by means of a model, e.g. mathematical model or statistical model
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/154 Measured or subjectively estimated visual quality after decoding, e.g. measurement of distortion use of rate-distortion criteria H04N19/147
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/159 Prediction type, e.g. intra-frame, inter-frame or bidirectional frame prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/18 the unit being a set of transform coefficients
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/192 the adaptation method, adaptation tool or adaptation type being iterative or recursive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/196 being specially adapted for the computation of encoding parameters, e.g. by averaging previously computed encoding parameters processing of motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/198 including smoothing of a sequence of encoding parameters, e.g. by averaging, by choice of the maximum, minimum or median value
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/48 using compressed domain processing techniques other than decoding, e.g. modification of transform coefficients, variable length coding [VLC] data or run-length data motion estimation in a transform domain H04N19/547; processing of decoded motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/577 Motion compensation with bidirectional frame interpolation, i.e. using B-pictures
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/625 using discrete cosine transform [DCT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/80 : Details of filtering operations specially adapted for video compression, e.g. for pixel interpolation H04N19/635, H04N19/86 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 : using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42646 : for reading from or writing on a non-volatile solid state storage medium, e.g. DVD, CD-ROM
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8106 : involving special audio data, e.g. different tracks for different languages
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 : specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 : Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 : involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 : by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/85406 : involving a specific file format, e.g. MP4 format
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 : using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 : by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A multimedia file and methods of generating, distributing and using the multimedia file are described. Multimedia files in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can contain multiple video tracks, multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitle tracks, a complete index that can be used to locate each data chunk in each of these tracks and an abridged index that can enable the location of a subset of the data chunks in each track, data that can be used to generate a menu interface to access the contents of the file and ‘meta data’ concerning the contents of the file. Multimedia files in accordance with several embodiments of the present invention also include references to video tracks, audio tracks, subtitle tracks and ‘meta data’ external to the file. One embodiment of a multimedia file in accordance with the present invention includes a series of encoded video frames, a first index that includes information indicative of the location within the file and characteristics of each encoded video frame and a separate second index that includes information indicative of the location within the file of a subset of the encoded video frames.

Claims

1. A multimedia file comprising:

a series of encoded video frames;

a first index that includes information indicative of the location within the file and characteristics of each encoded video frame;

a separate second index that includes information indicative of the location within the file of a subset of the encoded video frames.

2. The multimedia file of claim 1, wherein:

the second index includes at least one tag that references an encoded video frame in the subset of encoded video frames;

each tag comprises;

the location within the file of the referenced encoded video frame;

the frame number of the encoded video frame in the sequence of encoded video frames.

3. The multimedia file of claim 2, further comprising:

at least one audio track;

wherein each tag further comprises a reference to a portion of at least one of the audio tracks;

wherein the portion of the track that is referenced accompanies the encoded video frame referenced by the tag.

4. The multimedia file of claim 2, wherein:

each tag further comprises a reference to information located within the first index; and

the information referenced in the first index is indicative of the location within the file and characteristics of the encoded video frame referenced by the tag.

5. An encoder comprising:

a processor;

a memory including a file containing at least one sequence of encoded video frames;

wherein the processor is configured to generate an abridged index that references a subset of the encoded video frames in the sequence of encoded video frames.

6. The encoder of claim 5, wherein:

the processor is configured to generate a complete index that references all of the encoded video frames in the sequence of encoded video frames; and

each reference to an encoded video frame in the abridged index includes a reference to the reference to that frame in the complete index.

7. The encoder of claim 5, wherein each reference to an encoded video frame in the abridged index includes the sequence number of the encoded video frame.

8. The encoder of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to include in each reference to an encoded video frame a reference to a location within at least one sound track.

9. A decoder, comprising:

a processor;

a memory containing a multimedia file;

wherein the multimedia file includes;

a sequence of encoded video frames;

a complete index referencing each encoded video frame in the sequence of encoded video frames;

an abridged index referencing a subset of the encoded video frames in the sequence of encoded video frames;

wherein the processor is configured to locate a particular encoded video frame within the multimedia file using the abridged index.

10. The decoder of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured to locate reference information in the complete index using the abridged index.

11. The decoder of claim 9, wherein:

the multimedia file includes at least one audio track accompanying the sequence of encoded video frames; and

each reference to an encoded video frame in the abridged index includes a reference to a portion of at least one of the video tracks.

12. A method of encoding a multimedia file, comprising:

obtaining a sequence of encoded video frames;

identifying a subset of frames from the sequence of encoded video frames;

generating an abridged index that references the location within the multimedia file of each encoded video frame in the subset of encoded video frames.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the generation of an abridged index further comprises:

generating a reference to the location of each encoded video frame within the subset of encoded video frames; and

recording the sequence number of each encoded video frame within the subset of encoded video frames.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

obtaining at least one audio track accompanying the sequence of encoded video frames;

wherein the generation of an abridged index further comprises associating with each referenced encoded video frame a reference to a location with at least one of the audio tracks.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

obtaining a complete index that includes a reference to each encoded video frame in the sequence of encoded video frames;

wherein the generation of an index further comprises associating with each referenced encoded video frame a reference to a location within the second index.

16. A method of decoding a multimedia file including a sequence of encoded video frames, a first index that references each encoded video frame and a second index that references a subset of the encoded video frames, comprising:

identifying a desired encoded video frame;

determining the encoded video frame that is closest to the desired video frame in the second index; and

displaying an encoded video frame.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein:

each reference in the second index to an encoded video frame also includes a reference to the portion of the first index that refers to that encoded video frame;

displaying an encoded video frame, further comprises;

using the reference to the encoded video frame in the second index that is closest to the desired encoded video frame to locate that encoded frame within the first index;

searching in the first index for the desired encoded video frame; and

displaying the desired encoded video frame.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the closest frame is the closest preceding frame in the sequence to the desired frame.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein displaying an encoded video frame further comprises displaying the encoded video frame that is determined to be closest to the desired video frame.