System and method for indexing, searching, identifying, and editing multimedia files

• US 20070044010A1
• Filed: 08/14/2006
• Published: 02/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Scenera, Inc.
• Original Assignee: VMark, Inc. (VALID Soluciones Tecnológicas SA)
• Inventors: Kim, Hyeokman, Sull, Sanghoon
• Granted Patent: US 7,823,055 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/71 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7844 using original textual content or text extracted from visual content or transcript of audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7847 using low-level visual features of the video content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4092 Image resolution transcoding, e.g. by using client-server architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/20 Disc-shaped record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/41 Flat as opposed to hierarchical combination, e.g. library of tapes or discs, CD changer, or groups of record carriers that together store one title
• 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 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D

Abstract

A method and system are provided for tagging, indexing, searching, retrieving, manipulating, and editing video images on a wide area network such as the Internet. A first set of methods is provided for enabling users to add bookmarks to multimedia files, such as movies, and audio files, such as music. The multimedia bookmark facilitates the searching of portions or segments of multimedia files, particularly when used in conjunction with a search engine. Additional methods are provided that reformat a video image for use on a variety of devices that have a wide range of resolutions by selecting some material (in the case of smaller resolutions) or more material (in the case of larger resolutions) from the same multimedia file. Still more methods are provided for interrogating images that contain textual information (in graphical form) so that the text may be copied to a tag or bookmark that can itself be indexed and searched to facilitate later retrieval via a search engine.

Claims

1. A method for virtual editing of multimedia files, comprising:

providing one or more multimedia files each having a metadata file associated therewith, each of the metadata files having at least metadata of one segment to be edited; and

creating a single edited metadata file containing the metadata of the segments to be edited from each of the metadata files, wherein when the edited metadata file is accessed, the user is able to browse the segments using the segments'"'"' corresponding metadata.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata file is an XML file.

3. A method for virtual editing of multimedia file, comprising:

providing one or more multimedia files each having a metadata file associated therewith, each of the metadata files having at least metadata of one segment to be edited; and

creating a single edited metadata file containing links to the metadata of the segments to be edited from each of the metadata files, wherein when the edited metadata file is accessed, the user is able to browse the segments using the segments'"'"' corresponding metadata.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the metadata file is an XML file.

5. A method for creating a virtually edited multimedia file, comprising:

providing an input metadata file associated with a multimedia file, the metadata file having at least metadata of one segment that is selectable;

selecting a segment having its metadata in the metadata file;

determining if a composing segment should be created, and if the composing segment should be created, then creating a composing segment in a hierarchical structure;

specifying a composing segment in the hierarchical structure, and creating a component segment as a child node of the specified composing segment;

determining if metadata of the selected segment is to be copied or if a URI of the metadata is to be used, and if the metadata is to be copied, then copying metadata of the selected segment to the component segment, and if the URI is to be used, then writing a URI of the metadata of the selected segment to the component segment;

adding a URL of the multimedia file to the metadata of the component segment;

determining if the URLs added to the metadata of all siblings of the component segment are the same, and if the URLs are the same, then adding the URL to the specified composing segment and deleting the URL from all siblings of the component segment.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the metadata file is an XML file.

7. The method of claim 5, the method further comprising:

determining if another segment having its metadata is to be selected, and if another segment having its metadata is to be selected, then returning to the step of selecting a segment having its metadata in a metadata file.

8. The method of claim 7, the method further comprising:

determining if another input metadata file is to be used, and if another input metadata file is to be used, then returning to the step of providing an input metadata file.

9. A virtual multimedia editor comprising:

a network controller constructed and arranged to access remote metadata files and remote multimedia files;

a file controller in operative connection to the network controller, the file controller constructed and arranged to access local metadata files and local multimedia files, and to access the remote metadata files and the remote multimedia files via the network controller;

a parser constructed and arranged to receive information about the files from the file controller;

an input buffer constructed and arranged to receive parser information from the parser;

a structure manager constructed and arranged to provide structure data to the input buffer;

a composing buffer constructed and arranged to receive input information from the input buffer and structure information from the structure manager to generate composing information; and

a generator constructed and arranged to receive the composing information from the composing buffer;

wherein the generator generates output information in a pre-selected format.

10. The virtual multimedia editor of claim 9, the editor further comprising:

a playlist generator constructed and arranged to receive structure information from the structure manager to generate playlist information; and

a multimedia player constructed and arranged to receive the playlist information from the playlist generator and file information from the file controller to generate display information.

11. The virtual multimedia editor of claim 10, the editor further having a display device constructed and arranged to receive the display information from the multimedia player and to display the display information to a user.