AUDIO-ON-DEMAND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a receiving circuit to obtain a media stream and metadata related to the media stream from one or more servers, the metadata being associated with at least one time stamp for synchronizing presentation of the metadata with the media stream;
a playback circuit to output the media stream; and
a processor to automatically present the metadata in connection with the media stream at a time specified by the at least one time stamp.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An audio-on-demand communication system provides real-time playback of audio data transferred via telephone lines or other communication links. One or more audio servers include memory banks which store compressed audio data. At the request of a user at a subscriber PC, an audio server transmits the compressed audio data over the communication link to the subscriber PC. The subscriber PC receives and decompresses the transmitted audio data in less than real-time using only the processing power of the CPU within the subscriber PC. According to one aspect of the present invention, high quality audio data compressed according to lossless compression techniques is transmitted together with normal quality audio data. According to another aspect of the present invention, metadata, or extra data, such as text, captions, still images, etc., is transmitted with audio data and is simultaneously displayed with corresponding audio data. The audio-on-demand system also provides a table of contents indicating significant divisions in the audio clip to be played and allows the user immediate access to audio data at the listed divisions. According to a further aspect of the present invention, servers and subscriber PCs are dynamically allocated based upon geographic location to provide the highest possible quality in the communication link.
132 Citations
48 Claims
-
1. An apparatus comprising:
-
a receiving circuit to obtain a media stream and metadata related to the media stream from one or more servers, the metadata being associated with at least one time stamp for synchronizing presentation of the metadata with the media stream; a playback circuit to output the media stream; and a processor to automatically present the metadata in connection with the media stream at a time specified by the at least one time stamp. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
-
-
24. A method comprising:
-
receiving at a client device a media stream and metadata related to the media stream sent by one or more servers, the metadata being associated with at least one time stamp for synchronizing presentation of the metadata with the media stream; while outputting the media stream, automatically presenting the metadata at a time within the media stream specified by the at least one time stamp. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A method comprising:
-
receiving a media stream and metadata related to the media stream from one or more servers; storing the received media stream in a first buffer; storing the received metadata in a second buffer; regulating a rate at which the media stream and/or metadata is received from the one or more servers by selectively transmitting a signal to the one or more servers. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
-
-
42. A media server comprising:
-
means for transmitting a media stream and metadata related to the media stream to a client device, the metadata being associated with at least one synchronization element for causing the client device to synchronize presentation of the metadata with the media stream at a point within the media stream specified by the at least one synchronization element; and means for regulating the amount of metadata being transmitted to the client device, wherein the means for regulating comprises means for inserting at least one marker into the media stream and/or metadata that, if not acknowledged by the client device, will result in the media server discontinuing the transmission of the metadata to the client device. - View Dependent Claims (43, 44, 45, 46, 47)
-
-
48. A system comprising:
-
a receiving subsystem to obtain an audio stream and metadata interleaved with the audio stream from one or more servers, the metadata comprising one or more of text, still image, or video data, the metadata including at least one synchronization element for synchronizing presentation of the metadata with the audio stream; a playback subsystem to output the audio stream; a synchronization subsystem to trigger presentation of the metadata at a point within the audio stream specified by the at least one synchronization element; and a flow control subsystem to regulate a rate at which the audio stream and/or metadata is received from the one or more servers by selectively transmitting a signal to the one or more servers in response to at least one marker being identified in the audio stream and/or metadata, wherein failure to acknowledge the at least one marker is to cause the one or more servers to discontinue transmitting the audio stream and/or the metadata.
-
Specification