Device and method for modality conversion of multimedia contents

• US 20060294546A1
• Filed: 02/13/2004
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
• Inventors: Hong, Jin-Woo, Kim, Jin-Woong, Ro, Yong-Man, Nam, Je-Ho, Jung, Yong-Ju
• Granted Patent: US 7,853,864 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• 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 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25833 involving client hardware characteristics, e.g. manufacturer, processing or storage capabilities allocation of resources considering hardware capabilities in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/5044; allocation of resources considering software capabilities in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/5055
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26216 involving the channel capacity, e.g. network bandwidth admission control, resource allocation in open networks H04L12/5692; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10; establishing a schedule or organising the servicing of application requests taking into account QoS H04L67/61
• 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 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of systematically and synthetically accessing modality conversion that is an important part in the contents adaptive conversion process of a universal multimedia access system. The present invention provides an effective method of solving a problem, which is incurred at the time of modality conversion and still remains as one of difficult problems incurred during adaptive contents conversion. For this purpose, the present invention includes overlapped contents modeling newly proposed to determine modality conversion, a method of flexibly and clearly expressing and applying user preference for the modality conversion, and a resource allocation method of distributing resources among complicated contents based on the user preference. As a result, the integration of the above three methods provides a synthetic solution, particularly, to a problem incurred in the modality conversion and, generally, to a problem incurred in the adaptive conversion of contents.

Claims

1. A device for adaptively converting a formality of multimedia contents, comprising:

an engine receiving multimedia contents, metadata of the multimedia contents, user preference for the modality conversion and a resource restriction, and determining time and a method of converting a modality; and

an engine converting the modality of the input multimedia contents according to the time and method of converting determined by the determination engine.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the determination engine comprises:

means for predicting an overlapped contents model using the input multimedia contents and input metadata of the contents;

means for modifying the overlapped contents model using the user preference for the modality conversion; and

means for determining the time and a method of converting the modality of the multimedia contents according to the resource restriction so as to allow the multimedia contents to be represented in a form corresponding to a maximum contents value of the modified overlapped contents model.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the means for modifying the overlapped contents model additionally modifies the overlapped contents model.

4. The device according to claim 1, wherein the determination engine additionally determines a bit rate of the multimedia contents according to the resource restriction;

and

further comprising a contents transcoding engine converting the bit rate of the input multimedia contents according to the bit rate determined by the determination engine and outputting the contents at the converted bit rate.

5. The device according to claim 1, wherein the user preference for the modality conversion is represented by a sequence and a weight of the modality conversion.

6. The device according to claim 1, wherein the user preference for the modality conversion is described in an extended Markup Language (XML) form.

7. The device according to claim 1, wherein the user preference for the modality conversion comprises user preference for general contents modality conversion and user preference for specific modality conversion.

8. The device according to claim 1, wherein the user preference for the modality conversion comprises preference for video modality conversion, preference for image modality conversion, preference for audio modality conversion, and preference for text modality conversion.

9. A method of adaptively converting a modality of multimedia contents, comprising:

receiving multimedia contents and metadata of the multimedia contents from an outside;

receiving user preference for modality conversion;

adaptively converting a modality of the input multimedia contents according to the metadata of the contents and the user preference for the modality conversion; and

outputting the converted multimedia contents.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the user preference for modality conversion is represented by a sequence and a weight of the modality conversion.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein the user preference for modality conversion is described in an XML form.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the user preference for modality conversion comprises user preference for general contents modality conversion and user preference for specific modality conversion.

13. The adaptive conversion method according to claim 9, wherein the user preference for the modality conversion comprises preference for video modality conversion, preference for image modality conversion, preference for audio conversion, and preference for text modality conversion.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the preference for video modality conversion comprises preference for modality conversion of video into images, preference for modality conversion of video into audio, preference for modality conversion of video into text, and preference for non-conversion.

15. The adaptive conversion method according to claim 13, wherein the preference for image modality conversion comprises preference for modality conversion of images into audio, preference for modality conversion of images into text, and preference for non-conversion.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the preference for audio modality conversion comprises preference for modality conversion of audio into text, and preference for non-conversion.

17. The method according to claim 13, wherein the preference for text modality conversion comprises preference for modality conversion of text into audio, and preference for non-conversion.

18. The method according to claim 9, further comprising additionally receiving a resource restriction, wherein the adaptive conversion of the modality is performed while additionally considering the resource restriction.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the adaptive converting of the modality comprises:

predicting an overlapped contents model using the input multimedia contents and the input metadata of the contents;

modifying the overlapped contents model using the user preference for modality conversion; and

converting a modality of the multimedia contents to allow the multimedia contents to be represented in a form corresponding to a maximum contents value of the modified overlapped contents model under the resource restriction.

20. A device for adaptively converting a formality of multimedia contents, comprising:

means for receiving multimedia contents and metadata of the multimedia contents from an outside;

means for receiving user preference for modality conversion represented by a sequence and a weight of the modality conversion;

means for adaptively converting a modality of the input multimedia contents according to the metadata of the contents and the user preference for the modality conversion; and

means for outputting the converted multimedia contents.