METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALIGNING NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC VIDEO TO SPEECH SYNTHESIS
First Claim
1. A method of aligning video with audio, the method comprising:
- identifying a predetermined code associated with an animation mimic in a first stream; and
transmitting the predetermined code within the second stream to thereby synchronize the second stream with the first stream.
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Accused Products
Abstract
According to MPEG-4'"'"'s TTS architecture, facial animation can be driven by two streams simultaneously—text, and Facial Animation Parameters. In this architecture, text input is sent to a Text-To-Speech converter at a decoder that drives the mouth shapes of the face. Facial Animation Parameters are sent from an encoder to the face over the communication channel. The present invention includes codes (known as bookmarks) in the text string transmitted to the Text-to-Speech converter, which bookmarks are placed between words as well as inside them. According to the present invention, the bookmarks carry an encoder time stamp. Due to the nature of text-to-speech conversion, the encoder time stamp does not relate to real-world time, and should be interpreted as a counter. In addition, the Facial Animation Parameter stream carries the same encoder time stamp found in the bookmark of the text. The system of the present invention reads the bookmark and provides the encoder time stamp as well as a real-time time stamp to the facial animation system. Finally, the facial animation system associates the correct facial animation parameter with the real-time time stamp using the encoder time stamp of the bookmark as a reference.
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Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method of aligning video with audio, the method comprising:
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identifying a predetermined code associated with an animation mimic in a first stream; and
transmitting the predetermined code within the second stream to thereby synchronize the second stream with the first stream. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A method of decoding data, the method comprising:
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monitoring a first stream of data for a predetermined code that is associated with an animation mimic transmittal within a second stream; and
transmitting a signal to a decoder to start an animation using at least the animation mimic from the second stream and associated with the predetermined code. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A decoder comprising:
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a module that decodes a predetermined code from a first stream that is associated with an animation mimic within a second stream; and
a module that starts an animation using the animation mimic based on the decoded predetermined code. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification