MEDIA PLAYER APPARATUS AND METHOD THEREOF

• US 20080085099A1
• Filed: 10/04/2006
• Published: 04/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: MediaTek USA Incorporated (MediaTek, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MediaTek USA Incorporated (MediaTek, Inc.)
• Inventors: Guihot, Herve
• Application Number:
  US11/538,801
• Publication Number:
  US 20080085099A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/95
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2541 Blu-ray discs; Blue laser DVR discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/10 Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Measuring tape travel
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/11 by using information not detectable on the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/36 Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing for digital recording G11B20/00 and s.gr.; for monitoring, testing or measuring of TV recorders of the type covered by H04N5/76 and subgroups, see H04N17/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/434 Disassembling of a multiplex stream, e.g. demultiplexing audio and video streams, extraction of additional data from a video stream; Remultiplexing of multiplex streams; Extraction or processing of SI; Disassembling of packetised elementary stream demultiplexing of data packets for data networks, e.g. RTP/UDP H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4355 involving reformatting operations of additional data, e.g. HTML pages on a television screen optimising the visualization of content for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/9577; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/066; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/466 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies services using the results of monitoring in broadcast systems H04H60/61
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8233 the additional signal being a character code signal

Abstract

A method for playing a media source includes: extracting a reference subtitle stream from the media source, the reference subtitle stream being synchronized with a multimedia data stream of the media source; matching the reference subtitle stream to a substitute subtitle stream from a subtitle source for generating an output subtitle stream; and playing the multimedia data stream and the output subtitle stream synchronously.

Claims

1. A method for playing a media source, comprising:

extracting a reference subtitle stream from the media source, the reference subtitle stream being synchronized with a multimedia data stream of the media source;

matching the reference subtitle stream to a substitute subtitle stream from a subtitle source for generating an output subtitle stream; and

playing the multimedia data stream and the output subtitle stream synchronously.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching comprises:

associating the reference subtitle stream to a intermediate subtitle stream from the subtitle source using string comparison; and

associating the intermediate subtitle stream to the substitute subtitle stream using timestamp synchronization.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the intermediate subtitle stream and the reference subtitle stream are of a first language and the substitute subtitle stream is of a second language.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the intermediate subtitle stream is of a first subsidiary language of the first language and the reference subtitle stream is of a second subsidiary language of the first language and the method further comprises:

associating the first subsidiary language and the second subsidiary language when associating the reference subtitle stream and the intermediate subtitle stream.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the subtitle source are data from a remote server, and the method further comprises:

connecting to the remote server for retrieving the intermediate subtitle stream and the substitute subtitle stream.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching is performed by associating timestamps of the reference subtitle stream and the substitute subtitle stream.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia data stream includes a video stream.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the media source includes a DVD disc.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the media source includes a video over IP stream.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the media source includes a television broadcast signal.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the media source includes a hard disk d rive.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the subtitle source is an electronic file.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the subtitle source is a subtitle database.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching is performed offline.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of matching is performed in real time while data are received from the media source.

16. A media player apparatus for playing a media source, comprising:

a de-multiplexer for extracting a reference subtitle stream from the media source, the reference subtitle stream being synchronized with a multimedia data stream of the media source;

a subtitle engine for generating an output subtitle stream by mapping the reference subtitle stream to a substitute subtitle stream from a subtitle source; and

a mixer for merging the multimedia data stream and the output subtitle.

17. The media player apparatus of claim 16, wherein to perform the matching from the reference subtitle stream, the subtitle engine associates the reference subtitle stream to a intermediate subtitle stream from the media source using string comparison and further associates the intermediate subtitle stream to the substitute subtitle stream for generating the output subtitle stream using timestamps.

18. The media player apparatus of claim 16, wherein the subtitle engine associates the reference subtitle stream to the substitute subtitle stream using timestamps.

19. The media player apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:

a tuner for receiving the media source from a broadcast source.

20. The media player apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:

a network interface for receiving the media source from a server.

21. The media player apparatus of claim 16, wherein the media source is a hard disk.