DELIVERY OF NAVIGATION DATA FOR PLAYBACK OF AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTENT

• US 20070288516A1
• Filed: 04/17/2007
• Published: 12/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Clearplay Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Clearplay Incorporated
• Inventors: Jarman, Matthew
• Granted Patent: US 7,543,318 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2562 DVDs [digital versatile discs]; Digital video discs; MMCDs; HDCDs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4135 external recorder interface circuits between an apparatus for recording television signals and a television receiver H04N5/775
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4318 by altering the content in the rendering process, e.g. blanking, blurring or masking an image region image enhancement or restoration in general G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4396 by muting the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4542 Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes

Abstract

In accordance with the present invention a filtering process is based on the output side of a multimedia decoder. A navigator, located at a server system, monitors the current play position of multimedia content at a consumer system and compares that position with navigation objects. Each navigation object defines a start position, a stop position, and a filtering action to perform on the portion of the multimedia content that begins at the start position and ends at the stop position. When the current play position falls within the portion of multimedia content defined by a particular navigation object, the navigator sends the filtering action to the consumer system for processing. Filtering actions include skipping, muting, reframing, etc., the portion of multimedia content defined by a navigation object. Alternatively, the navigator may be located at a consumer system and the server system may provide access to the navigation objects (e.g. download) so that the consumer system monitors and filters the multimedia content based on the received navigation objects. A variety of systems may be used to implement the present invention, such as computer systems (consumer and server), television systems, and audio systems.

Claims

1. A multimedia content navigation object comprising:

one or more tangible computer executable instructions comprising;

a start indicator associated with a first position in a multimedia content presentation;

an end indicator associated with a second position in the multimedia content presentation;

at least one content descriptor identifying a type of multimedia content associated with the multimedia content presentation between the first position and the second position; and

at least one filtering action associated with the start indicator and the end indicator.

2. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 wherein the start indicator includes a first hour designation, a first minute designation, and a first seconds designation.

3. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 2 wherein the end indicator includes a second hour designation, a second minute designation, and a second seconds designation.

4. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 3 wherein the start indicator further includes a first frame designation and the end indicator further includes a second frame designation.

5. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 wherein the end indicator includes a frame count from the start indicator.

7. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 further comprising a multimedia content presentation identifier for the multimedia content navigation object.

8. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 further comprising a configuration identifier.

9. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 further comprising a computer readable media with the computer executable instructions for the start indicator, end indicator, the at least one content descriptor, and the filtering action.

10. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 further comprising a DVD player including a memory with the computer executable instructions for the start indicator, the end indicator, the at least one content descriptor, and the filtering action.

11. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 wherein the start indicator corresponds with a physical position of a removable memory media including the multimedia content presentation.

12. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 11 wherein the end indicator corresponds with a second physical location of the removable memory media including the multimedia content presentation.

13. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 11 wherein the removable memory media is a DVD.

14. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 wherein the multimedia content presentation is obtained from at least one of a DVD, a CD, a random access memory, a hard drive, a removable disk storage medium, a tape storage medium, a wired communications link, and a wireless communications link.

15. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 1 further comprising an object store including a plurality of multimedia content navigation objects.

6. The multimedia content navigation object of clam 1 wherein the filtering action includes at least one of a skip filtering action, a mute filtering action, a reframe filtering action, and a fade filtering action.

16. A multimedia content navigation object comprising:

one or more tangible computer executable instructions comprising;

a start indicator associated with a first position in a multimedia content presentation;

an end indicator associated with a second position in a multimedia content presentation;

at least one filtering action associated with the start indicator and the end indicator; and

a content presentation identifier that associates the content navigation object with the multimedia content presentation.

17. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the at least one content presentation identifier includes a DVD movie title.

18. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising:

at least one content descriptor identifying a type of multimedia content associated with the multimedia content presentation between the first position and the second position.

19. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the start indicator includes an hour designation, a minute designation, and a second designation.

20. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the end indicator includes an hour designation, a minute designation, and a second designation.

21. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the end indicator includes a frame count from the start indicator.

23. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the multimedia content presentation is obtained from at least one of a DVD, a CD, a random access memory, a hard drive, a removable disk storage medium, a tape storage medium, a wired communications link, and a wireless communications link.

24. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising a configuration identifier.

25. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising an optical storage media with computer readable instructions for the start indicator, the end indicator, the at least one content descriptor, and the content presentation identifier.

26. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising a DVD player including a memory with the computer executable instructions for the start indicator, the end indicator, the filtering action, and the content presentation identifier.

27. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 wherein the start indicator corresponds with a physical position of a removable memory media including the multimedia content presentation.

28. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 27 wherein the end indicator corresponds with a second physical location of the removable memory media including the multimedia content presentation.

29. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 28 wherein the removable memory media is a DVD.

30. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising an object store including a plurality of navigation objects.

31. The multimedia content navigation object of claim 16 further comprising a computer readable media including the one or more tangible computer executable instructions.

22. The multimedia content navigation object of clam 16 wherein the filtering action includes at least one of a skip filtering action, a mute filtering action, a reframe filtering action, and a fade filtering action.