Media player service library

• US 20070048712A1
• Filed: 08/12/2005
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Novak, Michael, Plastina, Daniel, Chang, Frank, Cain, Jonathan, Ballinger, Keith, Hally, Judson
• Granted Patent: US 7,831,605 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/308
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/06 with both visual and audible presentation of the material to be studied

Abstract

Integrated management of local and remote media files. A playlist of media files adapted for rendering by a media player application are located in either a local media library stored at the computer or a remote media library accessible by the computer via a data communication network or both. Media player operations may be performed on the playlist. A first identifier identifies each of the media files in the playlist and a second identifier represents a source of each of the media files in the playlist. A streaming locator defined by the first and second identifiers locates each of the media files in the playlist in the local media library and then in the remote library.

Claims

1. A computerized method of managing media files on a computer coupled to a data communication network, said computer executing a media player application for rendering one or more of the media files, said media files comprising one or more local media files stored at the computer and one or more remote media files accessible by the computer via the network, said method comprising:

defining a playlist of media files;

locating the media files in the playlist in either a first media library or a second media library or both, said first media library containing the local media files and said second media library containing the remote media files; and

permitting media player operations on the playlist.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the media player operations include one or more of the following:

displaying metadata associated with the media files;

rendering the media files;

rendering samples of the media files;

copying the media files;

downloading the remote media files to the first media library;

searching the media files according to the metadata associated therewith;

searching the media files according to content of the media files;

sorting the media files according to the metadata associated therewith; and

displaying contextual menus of available media player operations.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying each of the media files in the playlist with a first identifier representative of the media file and a second identifier representative of a source of the media file; and

saving the first and second identifiers into the playlist.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein locating the media files comprises defining a streaming locator for each of the media files in the playlist and saving the locators into the playlist.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the streaming locator comprises a streaming uniform resource locator (URL).

6. The method of claim 4, wherein defining the streaming locator for each of the media files in the playlist comprises locating, based on the first and second identifiers, each of the local media files in the playlist before locating the remote media files in the playlist.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein locating the media files in the playlist comprises querying the first media library based on the first and second identifiers to define a streaming locator for each of the local media files in the playlist.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein locating the media files in the playlist comprises querying the second media library based on the first and second identifiers to define a streaming locator for each of the remote media files in the playlist.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically attempting to download the remote media files in the playlist via the network.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the playlist comprises a streaming locator, a service ID, and service name for each of a plurality of selected media files.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein each of the media files in the playlist includes a header containing metadata associated with the media file and further comprising extracting the metadata from the header of each of the media files in the playlist to determine if the media file was previously stored in the first media library and rendering the media from the first media library before rendering the media file from the second media library.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein defining the playlist comprises querying metadata associated with the media files in the first media library or the second media library or both based on one or more editorial fields

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the editorial fields comprise one or more of the following:

similar content, similar artists, recommended artists, popularity, featured list, amount of sales, and artist discography.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the playlist to a user in a user interface of the media player application.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising displaying community ratings of one or more of the media files in the playlist to the user in the user interface.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1.

17. At least one computer-readable medium having a data structure stored thereon, said data structure comprising:

a playlist of media files adapted for rendering by a media player application executed on a computer, each of said media files in the playlist being located in either a local media library stored at the computer or a remote media library accessible by the computer via a data communication network or both;

a first identifier for identifying each of the media files in the playlist;

a second identifier representative of a source of each of the media files in the playlist; and

a streaming locator for each of the media files in the playlist, said streaming locator being defined by the first and second identifiers, said streaming locator first locating each of the media files in the playlist in the local media library and then locating each of the media files in the playlist in the remote library.

18. The data structure of claim 17, wherein the streaming locator comprises a streaming uniform resource locator (URL).

19. The data structure of claim 17, wherein the media files each include metadata associated therewith and wherein the playlist includes results from querying the metadata in the local media library or the remote media library or both based on one or more editorial fields

20. The data structure of claim 19, wherein the editorial fields comprise one or more of the following:

similar content, similar artists, recommended artists, popularity, featured list, amount of sales, and artist discography.