SOLUTION FOR CAPTURING AND PRESENTING USER-CREATED TEXTUAL ANNOTATIONS SYNCHRONOUSLY WHILE PLAYING A VIDEO RECORDING

• US 20090087160A1
• Filed: 09/28/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: LUI, ALFRED YING FAI, BURNS, DAVID M., TAN, ALAN
• Granted Patent: US 8,364,020 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/282
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/10 Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Measuring tape travel
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/11 by using information not detectable on the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D

Abstract

The present invention discloses a textual annotation system for video recordings. Such a system can include a video recording, an annotation interface, and an annotation manager. The annotation interface can be configured to accept and execute a set of user-selectable commands for creating, modifying, and transmitting a user-created annotation set. The user-created annotation set can contains multiple textual annotations with associated placement data. The annotation manager can be configured to display the user-created annotation set synchronously with the video recording such that the contents of the video recording are unaltered.

Claims

1. A textual annotation system for video recordings comprising:

a video recording file;

an annotation interface configured to accept and execute a set of user-selectable commands for a user-created annotation set, wherein the user-created annotation set contains a plurality of textual annotations and associated placement data, wherein each textual annotation corresponds to a specified time segment of the video recording; and

an annotation manager configured to display the user-created annotation set synchronously with the video recording file within a viewing space in real-time, wherein the video recording file contents are unaltered.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of user-selectable commands available within the annotation interface includes one or more of an add annotation command, a delete annotation command, a modify annotation command, a save annotation command, a create new annotation set command, a save annotation set command, an upload annotation set command, a download annotation set command, and an apply annotation set command.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the placement data associated with a textual annotation of the annotation set includes a display location defining an area within the viewing space to display the textual annotation, a start time code corresponding to a time code value associated with a frame of the video recording file at which to begin displaying the textual annotation, and a duration value defining a length of time to display the textual annotation in the display location.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a video playing application configured to display the video recording file, wherein the video playing application includes a mechanism by which to invoke the annotation interface, and wherein a display area of the video playing application represents the viewing space.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the annotation interface further comprises:

a viewing interface configured to contain the viewing space and display the video recording file in the viewing space.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the annotation interface further comprises:

an input mechanism configured to capture a textual annotation and placement data for the annotation set.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the user-created annotation set is located in a data store of a remotely located server.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a local data store accessible by the annotation manager and annotation interface and configured to store the annotation set and video recording file.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the video recording file is located in a data store of a remotely located server.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein a resource-constrained runtime environment operates on a portable computing device, wherein the portable computing device is one of a mobile phone, a personal data assistant, and a portable gaming unit.

11. A method for presenting user-created textual annotations while playing a video recording comprising:

receiving a user selection of a video recording;

receiving a user selection of a user-created annotation set, wherein the user-created annotation set contains a plurality of textual annotations and associated placement data, wherein each textual annotation corresponds to a specified time segment of the video recording;

receiving a user request to apply the user-created annotation set to the selected video recording; and

synchronously displaying the user-created annotation set with the video recording in a shared viewing space.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the placement data associated with a textual annotation of the annotation set includes a display location defining an area within the shared viewing space to display the textual annotations a start time code corresponding to a time code value associated with a frame of the video recording file at which to begin displaying the textual annotation, and a duration value defining a length of time to display the textual annotation in the display location.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the displaying step further comprises:

comparing a time code value corresponding to a frame of the video recording that is currently displayed with the start time code value; and

when the time code value of the frame matches the start time code for a textual annotation within the annotation set, displaying the textual annotation at the defined display location for an amount of time equal to the duration value.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the comparing step and displaying step, when necessary, are repeated until the displaying step terminates.

15. The method of claim 11, the user selection of the annotation set further comprises:

accessing a data store of a remotely located annotation server, wherein the data store contains one or more user-created annotation sets corresponding to the video recording;

selecting one of the one or more of user-created annotation sets, wherein a basis of the selection is a user-rating of the user-created annotation set; and

downloading the selected annotation set from the data store, wherein a copy of the selected annotation set is stored in a local data store.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving a user-modification to at least one of a textual annotation and placement data of a textual annotation within die user-created annotation set;

saving the user-modification to a local data store; and

automatically displaying the user-modification synchronously with the video recording.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein said steps of claim 11 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program stored in a computer readable media, said computer programming having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

18. An online community providing user-created textual annotations to video recordings comprising:

a video annotation server configured to provide access to a data store containing a plurality of user-created annotation sets and user-created video recordings; and

a video annotation application configured to create, modify, view, and convey user-created annotation sets, wherein the video annotation server serves videos annotated with the user-created annotation sets to a plurality of clients, which are configured to view the served and annotated videos within one of a browser and a Rich Internet Interface.

19. The online community of claim 18, wherein the video annotation server further comprises:

a rating interface configured to accept a plurality of user-ratings for a specified video recording, wherein the rating interface calculates an average user rating for the video recording from the plurality of user-ratings and stores said plurality of user-ratings and calculated average user rating in the data store.

20. The online community of claim 18, wherein the user-created annotation set contains a plurality of textual annotations and associated placement data, wherein each textual annotation corresponds to a specified time segment of the video recording.