METHOD OF AND DEVICE FOR SEARCHING FOR RELEVANT CONTENT IN A NETWORK

• US 20090228466A1
• Filed: 07/22/2005
• Published: 09/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Peters, Marc Andre, Van Den Boomen, Wilhelmus Henrica Gerarda Maria
• Application Number:
  US11/573,452
• Publication Number:
  US 20090228466A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

This invention relates to a method of and a device for searching for relevant content that automatically obtains related information for a digital content item currently being rendered, played, viewed, accessed or selected on an audio/video device (e.g. a HD recorder). The obtained related information is used to automatically search for groups of a network (e.g. a P2P network) comprising said digital content item.

Claims

1. A method of searching for relevant content, said method comprising the steps of:

automatically obtaining related information (MD;

101;

ID) for a digital content item (103) currently being rendered or selected on an audio/video device (300), and

establishing a communications connection with at least one additional audio/video device (300′

) via a network (100), and

using said related information (MD;

101;

ID) to automatically search via said additional audio/video device (300′

) for groups (102) comprising said digital content item (103).

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said method further comprises, when a user (200) manually initiates a search for one or more content items (103) and/or groups (102) where the search comprises one or more fields to search for, the step of:

specifying one or more initial values for each field using said related information (MD;

101), where the user (200) may, for each field, select among the initial values if more than two initial values for a single field and/or may de-select the use of initial values for a single field.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein said search is initiated in the background when rendering or selection of the content item is started so that a result of said search at least more likely is ready when a user requests the result.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein said step of using said related information (MD;

101;

ID) to automatically search for groups (102) comprises;

searching among groups (102) to which said audio/video device (300) belongs to, and/or

searching among all groups (102) of the network (100).

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein said related information (MD;

101) comprises metadata (MD;

101) annotated to said digital content item (103).

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein said digital content item (103) currently being rendered:

is a pre-recorded or downloaded content item obtained from a local storage (302;

306) of said audio/video device (300), and/or

is a pre-recorded or downloaded content item obtained from an additional audio/video device (300′

) via said network (100), and/or

is a content item obtained via live broadcast.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein said network (100) is a peer-to-peer network and/or said audio/video device (300) is a hard disk recorder (HDR) or personal video recorder (PVR).

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein said group (102) is a virtual private network (VPN) comprising content items (103) relevant for said group of all the users (200) belonging to that particular group.

17. A computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing one or more processing units to execute the method according to claim 1.

9. A device for searching for relevant content, said device comprising:

means (301) for automatically obtaining related information (MD;

101;

ID) for a digital content item (103) currently being rendered or selected on an audio/video device (300), and

a communications transceiver (303) for establishing a communications connection with at least one additional audio/video device (300′

) via a network (100), and

means (301) for using said related information (MD;

101;

ID) to automatically search via said additional audio/video device (300′

) for groups (102) comprising said digital content item (103).

10. A device according to claim 9, wherein said device further comprises means (301) for, when a user (200) manually initiates a search for one or more content items (103) and/or groups (102) where the search comprises one or more fields to search for:

specifying one or more initial values for each field using said related information (MD;

101), where the user (200) may, for each field, select among the initial values if more than two initial values for a single field and/or may de-select the use of initial values for a single field.

11. A device according to claim 9, wherein said search is initiated in the background when rendering or selection of the content item is started so that a result of said search at least more likely is ready when a user requests the result.

12. A device according to claim 9, wherein said means (301) for using said related information (MD;

101;

ID) to automatically search for groups (102) is adapted to;

search among groups (102) to which said audio/video device (300) belongs to, and/or

search among all groups (102) of the network (100).

13. A device according to claim 9, wherein said related information (MD;

101) comprises metadata (MD;

101) annotated to said digital content item (103).

14. A device according to claim 9, wherein said digital content item (103) currently being rendered:

is a pre-recorded or downloaded content item obtained from a local storage (302;

306) of said audio/video device (300), and/or

is a pre-recorded or downloaded content item obtained from an additional audio/video device (300′

) via said network (100), and/or

is a content item obtained via live broadcast.

15. A device according to claim 9, wherein said network (100) is a peer-to-peer network and/or said audio/video device (300) is a hard disk recorder (HDR) or personal video recorder (PVR).

16. A device according to claim 9, wherein said group (102) is a virtual private network (VPN) comprising content items (103) relevant for said group of all the users (200) belonging to that particular group.