Method and apparatus for timed tagging of media content

• US 20070112837A1
• Filed: 06/01/2006
• Published: 05/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cxense ASA
• Original Assignee: BBNT Solutions LLC (Rtx Corporation)
• Inventors: Houh, Henry, Stern, Jeffrey
• Granted Patent: US 7,801,910 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/489 using time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/685 using automatically derived transcript of audio data, e.g. lyrics speech recognition G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/745 the internal structure of a single video sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7834 using audio features
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7844 using original textual content or text extracted from visual content or transcript of audio data

Abstract

A method and apparatus for timed tagging of content is featured. The method and apparatus can include the steps of, or structure for, obtaining at least one keyword tag associated with discrete media content; generating a timed segment index of discrete media content, the timed segment index identifying content segments of the discrete media content and corresponding timing boundaries of the content segments; searching the timed segment index for a match to the at least one keyword tag, the match corresponding to at least one of the content segments identified in the segment index; and generating a timed tag index that includes the at least one keyword tag and the timing boundaries corresponding to the least one content segment of the discrete media content containing the match.

Claims

1. A computerized method of timed tagging of media content, comprising:

obtaining at least one keyword tag associated with discrete media content;

generating a timed segment index of discrete media content, the timed segment index identifying content segments of the discrete media content and corresponding timing boundaries of the content segments;

searching the timed segment index for a match to the at least one keyword tag, the match corresponding to at least one of the content segments identified in the segment index; and

generating a timed tag index that includes the at least one keyword tag and the timing boundaries corresponding to the least one content segment of the discrete media content containing the match.

2. The computerized method of claim 1,

generating a timed segment index of discrete media content, the timed segment index identifying text of audible words from content segments of the discrete media content and corresponding timing boundaries of the content segments;

searching the timed segment index for text matching the at least one keyword tag, the matching text corresponding to at least one of the content segments identified in the segment index; and

generating a timed tag index that includes the at least one keyword tag and the timing boundaries corresponding to the least one content segment of the discrete media content containing the matching text.

3. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving the keyword tag from a content provider, the keyword tag being associated with the discrete media content by the content provider.

4. The computerized method of claim 2 further comprising:

receiving the keyword tag from a content provider, the keyword tag being uploaded along with the discrete media content by the content provider.

5. The computerized method of claim 2 further comprising:

receiving the keyword tag from a content provider, the keyword tag being embedded in a content descriptor corresponding to the discrete media content provided by the content provider.

6. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating the keyword tag from the timed segment index.

7. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein the content segments identified in the timed segment index includes word segments, each word segment identifying the text of an audible word and the corresponding timing boundaries of the audible word within the discrete media content, and the method further comprising:

comparing the at least one keyword tag to the text of the audible word identified in each of the word segments;

obtaining the corresponding timing boundaries for at least one of the word segments including the text of an audible word matching to the at least one keyword tag;

identifying a broader content segment from the timed segment index having timing boundaries that include the corresponding timing boundaries of the word segment matching to the at least one keyword tag;

mapping the timing boundaries of the broader content segment to the at least one keyword tag in the timed tag index.

8. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising:

presenting a search result that enables a user to arbitrarily select and commence playback of the discrete media content at any of the content segments associated with the at least one keyword tag using the timing boundaries identified within the timed tag index.

9. The computerized method of claim 2 wherein the text of audible words from content segments of the discrete media content are derived from the discrete media content using one or more media processing techniques or obtained from closed caption data associated with the discrete media content.

10. The computerized method of claim 2 wherein the text of the audible words is obtained from closed caption data, and the method further comprising:

aligning the text from the closed caption data to timing boundaries corresponding to the content segments of the discrete media content; and

generating the timed segment index of discrete media content, the timed segment index identifying the text from the closed caption data aligned to the corresponding timing boundaries of the content segments

11. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein one or more of the content segments identified in the timed segment index include word segments, audio speech segments, video segments, or marker segments.

12. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein one or more of the content segments identified in the timed segment index include audio corresponding to an individual word, audio corresponding to a phrase, audio corresponding to a sentence, audio corresponding to a paragraph, audio corresponding to a story, audio corresponding to a topic, audio within a range of volume levels, audio of an identified speaker, audio during a speaker turn, audio associated with a speaker emotion, audio separated by sound gaps, audio separated by markers embedded within the media content or audio corresponding to a named entity.

13. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein one or more of the content segments identified in the timed segment index include video of individual scenes, watermarks, recognized objects, recognized faces, overlay text or video separated by markers embedded within the media content.

14. An apparatus for timed tagging of media content, comprising:

means for obtaining at least one keyword tag associated with discrete media content;

means for generating a timed segment index of discrete media content, the timed segment index identifying content segments of the discrete media content and corresponding timing boundaries of the content segments;

means for searching the timed segment index for a match to the at least one keyword tag, the match corresponding to at least one of the content segments identified in the segment index; and

means for generating a timed tag index that includes the at least one keyword tag and the timing boundaries corresponding to the least one content segment of the discrete media content containing the match.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the content segments identified in the timed segment index includes word segments, each word segment identifying the text of an audible word and the corresponding timing boundaries of the audible word within the discrete media content, and the apparatus further comprising:

means for comparing the at least one keyword tag to the text of the audible word identified in each of the word segments;

means for obtaining the corresponding timing boundaries for at least one of the word segments including the text of an audible word matching to the at least one keyword tag;

means for identifying a broader content segment from the timed segment index having timing boundaries that include the corresponding timing boundaries of the word segment matching to the at least one keyword tag; and

means for mapping the timing boundaries of the broader content segment to the at least one keyword tag in the timed tag index.