Media discovery and curation of playlists

• US 20070168388A1
• Filed: 12/30/2005
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Novak, Michael, Plastina, Daniel, Kiefer, William
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,210 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 27/329 on a disc [VTOC]

Abstract

A media player monitors user playback control actions, such as skip commands, during a playback experience associated with a playlist. Based on these actions, the media player sets one or more media files to an inactive state. The media player defines a subgroup, or modified playlist excluding the inactive media files for further processing.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of processing media files, said method comprising:

monitoring a user playback control action during a playback experience associated with a group of media files, said media files each being in an active state for rendering to a user according to the playback experience;

setting at least one of the media files to an inactive state based on the monitored user playback control action; and

defining a subgroup of the media files, said subgroup including active media files and excluding inactive media files.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing the defined subgroup of media files in response to user input.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising executing a media player application, said media player application being configured for rendering the media files to generate the playback experience, and further comprising presenting a user interface associated with the media player application, said user interface providing one or more save options to receive the user input for storing the defined subgroup, said save options including one or more of the following:

save all of the media files in the group and ignore the inactive media files.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising executing a media player application, said media player application being configured for rendering the media files to generate the playback experience, and further comprising presenting a user interface associated with the media player application.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising displaying, in the user interface, a playlist associated with the group of media files to be rendered by the media player application and providing a visual indication in the playlist of the inactive media files in response to the monitored user playback control action.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein providing a visual indication comprises visually distinguishing the inactive and active media files in the group of media files by one or more of the following:

dimming playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

graying out playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

displaying playlist entries for the inactive media files in a different font than playlist entries for the active media files;

underlining playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

displaying playlist entries for the inactive media files in a different color than playlist entries for the active media files;

displaying an icon near playlist entries corresponding to the inactive files; and

removing playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files from the playlist.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the user interface provides a menu of available playlist options associated with the inactive media files, said playlist options including one or more of the following:

always ask before ignoring the inactive media files;

never ignore the inactive media files; and

always ignore the inactive media files.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising displaying, in the user interface, a playlist associated with the subgroup of the media files.

9. The method of claim 5 further comprising receiving the playlist from a media service.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising providing feedback concerning the playlist to the media service in response to the monitored user playback control action.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the group of media files comprises one or more of the following:

a media library and a playlist.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring a user playback control action during a subsequent playback experience associated with the group of media files;

resetting one or more of the inactive media files to the active state based on the monitored user playback control; and

redefining the subgroup of the media files, said subgroup including the previously inactive media files that have been reset to the active state.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising retaining the inactive media files in the inactive state during a subsequent playback experience associated with the group of media files.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein monitoring the user playback control action comprises receiving a skip command from the user during the playback experience.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning a default rating to each of the inactive media files.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising executing a media player application on a remote computing device, said media player application being configured for rendering the media files to generate the playback experience, and further comprising synchronizing the remote computing device to a local computing device for providing information representative of the monitored user playback control action to the local computing device, said local computing device defining the subgroup of the media files in response thereto.

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

18. In a computer system having a display, said display having a user interface rendered thereon, said user interface being associated with a media player application, said media player application being configured for rendering media files according to a playback experience, said user interface comprising:

a pane displaying a playlist of one or more active media files to be rendered by the media player application;

a user playback control responsive to user input for selecting one or more of the active media files from the playlist to be skipped during the playback experience, each of said skipped media files being set to an inactive state; and

a visual indication in the playlist distinguishing the inactive media files from the active media files.

19. The user interface of claim 18 further comprising an options dialog box for presenting one or more save options for storing a modified playlist that excludes the inactive media files and for receiving user input corresponding thereto.

20. The user interface of claim 18 wherein the visual indication comprises one or more of the following:

dimming playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

graying out playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

displaying playlist entries for the inactive media files in a different font than playlist entries for the active media files;

underlining playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files;

displaying playlist entries for the inactive media files in a different color than playlist entries for the active media files;

displaying an icon near playlist entries corresponding to the inactive files; and

removing playlist entries corresponding to the inactive media files from the playlist.