WEB-BASED SYSTEM FOR GENERATION OF INTERACTIVE GAMES BASED ON DIGITAL VIDEOS

• US 20090297118A1
• Filed: 02/19/2009
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Fink, Michael, Schrock, Jasson Arthur, Junee, Ryan, Tavory, Ran, Barzilai, Aviad, Kerem, Nir, Bar, Sigalit, Ratner, Simon, Ho, Herbert, Elias, Isaac, Frumar, Julian
• Granted Patent: US 8,826,357 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/278
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6018 where the game content is authored by the player, e.g. level editor or by game device at runtime, e.g. level is created from music data on CD
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/632 by branching, e.g. choosing one of several possible story developments at a given point in time
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/69 Involving elements of the real world in the game world, e.g. measurement in live races, real video
• 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 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/252 Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25875 involving end-user authentication restricting access to computer systems by authenticating users using a predetermined code G06F21/33; arrangements for secret or secure communication including means for verifying the identity or authority of a user of the system H04L9/32; networks authentication protocols H04L63/08; authentication in wireless network security H04W12/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8541 involving branching, e.g. to different story endings
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8583 by creating hot-spots
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for adding and displaying interactive annotations for existing online hosted videos. A graphical annotation interface allows the creation of annotations and association of the annotations with a video. Annotations may be of different types and have different functionality, such as altering the appearance and/or behavior of an existing video, e.g. by supplementing it with text, allowing linking to other videos or web pages, or pausing playback of the video. Authentication of a user desiring to perform annotation of a video may be performed in various manners, such as by checking a uniform resource locator (URL) against an existing list, checking a user identifier against an access list, and the like. As a result of authentication, a user is accorded the appropriate annotation abilities, such as full annotation, no annotation, or annotation restricted to a particular temporal or spatial portion of the video.

Claims

1. A method of providing an interactive game based on a digital video, the method comprising:

storing a source video in a video database;

storing annotations in an annotations database in association with the source video, at least a first one of the annotations referencing a time within a target video, wherein a selection of the first annotation causes playback of the target video at the time location within the video referenced by the first annotation; and

responsive to receiving a request from a client device for the source video, transmitting the source video and its associated annotations to the client device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the target video for the first annotation is the source video.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first annotation specifies a URL encoding an identifier of the target video and encoding the referenced time.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting to the client device a pause annotation associated with a time of the source video at which a plurality of the annotations are displayed, the pause annotation causing playback of the source video to halt when the associated time is reached.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first annotation is associated with a time range of the source video during which the first annotation is displayed.

6. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program executable by a processor for providing an interactive game based on a digital video, the actions of the computer program comprising:

storing a source video in a video database;

storing annotations in an annotations database in association with the source video, at least a first one of the annotations referencing a time within a target video, wherein a selection of the first annotation causes playback of the target video at the time location within the video referenced by the first annotation; and

responsive to receiving a request from a client device for the source video, transmitting the source video and its associated annotations to the client device.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the target video for the first annotation is the source video.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the first annotation specifies a URL encoding an identifier of the target video and encoding the referenced time.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, the actions of the computer program further comprising:

transmitting to the client device a pause annotation associated with a time of the source video at which a plurality of the annotations are displayed, the pause annotation causing playback of the source video to halt when the associated time is reached.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the first annotation is associated with a time range of the source video during which the first annotation is displayed.

11. A computer system for providing an interactive game based on a digital video, the system comprising:

an annotations database storing annotations in association with a source video, at least a first one of the annotations referencing a time within a target video, wherein a selection of the first annotation causes playback of the target video at the time location within the video referenced by the first annotation; and

an annotation server transmitting the annotations to a client device, responsive to receiving a request for the source video originating from the client device.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the target video for the first annotation is the source video.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the first annotation specifies a URL encoding an identifier of the target video and encoding the referenced time.

14. The system of claim 11, the annotation server additionally transmitting to the client device a pause annotation associated with a time of the source video at which a plurality of the annotations are displayed, the pause annotation causing playback of the source video to halt when the associated time is reached.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the first annotation is associated with a time range of the source video during which the first annotation is displayed.