Earmarking Media Documents

• US 20080109405A1
• Filed: 11/03/2006
• Published: 05/08/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tedesco, Megan Lesley, Abanami, Thamer A., Jubelirer, Matthew
• Granted Patent: US 8,296,315 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures

Abstract

A media object being played by a user may be marked by creating a mark object comprising the playback time when the mark was created. The time may be used to reference metadata with information about the media object at the time referenced. The metadata may be used to launch web searches corresponding to elements of the media at the time in question, for example, a back up singer at a point in a music track or the name of a resort in a movie. The searches may be performed from media player or the mark object may be transferred to a networked computer for performing the searches. The technique is equally applicable to portable media players, software or firmware media players on computers, or set top boxes.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions implementing a method for marking media documents comprising:

playing a media object on a media player;

creating a mark object associated with the media object including a media object identifier and a time marker associated with a playback time of the media object;

storing the mark object;

searching for related data using the mark object as a search key; and

receiving results from searching.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein storing the mark object comprises one of storing the mark object at the media player and downloading the mark object to an electronic device and storing the mark object in a memory of the electronic device.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the mark object includes metadata about the media object.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the media object comprises the metadata and creating the mark object comprises extracting the metadata from the media object.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the media object comprises a universal resource locator (URL) and creating the mark object comprises retrieving the metadata from a site referenced by the URL.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the metadata includes a title and a publisher reference.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the metadata is used to form the search key and includes one or more time range-specific URLs.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the metadata includes executable code for presenting a user with media object-related search options.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein creating the mark object comprises selecting a time range corresponding to the time marker from a set of time ranges.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein playing the media object on a media player comprises displaying a user interface element for creating the mark object.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprises displaying results from the searching.

12. A method of retrieving data associated with a media object comprising:

receiving a signal during playback of a media object;

storing a time corresponding to a media object playback time when receiving the signal;

retrieving a set of references associated with the media object and the time;

launching a search for at least one element of the set of references associated with the media object and the time; and

storing the results of the search.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the set of references comprises elements associated with only the media object and no specific media object playback time.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the set of references comprises at least one of a URL, a product identifier, a product brand name, and a geographic location.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein receiving a signal during playback of a media object comprises receiving an signal from a user interface element accessible during playback of the media object.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein noting the time corresponding to a media object playback time comprises noting a time from the media object start, a frame identifier, a media stream time identifier, a media stream packet identifier, and a time range identifier.

17. The method of claim 12, launching the search for at least one element of the set of references comprises launching the search from one of a media player device and a computer incorporating a media player object.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein launching the search comprises launching the search from a computer after one of downloading the set of references to the computer from a media player device and downloading a media object identifier and the time to the computer.

19. A media player device comprising:

a storage device storing media objects, media object metadata, and executable code;

a processor coupled to the storage device, and the communication port; and

a user interface comprising a display and a user input coupled to the processor adapted to receive an input from a user while playing a media object for creating a mark object corresponding to the media object and a playback time, wherein creating the mark object initiates activity by the processor to execute a first search for references corresponding to the media object and the playback time and a second search for information corresponding to the references.

20. The media player device of claim 19, further comprising a communication port for bidirectional communication with a remote entity, wherein the processor executes at least the second search with the remote entity over the communication port.