Systems and methods for remote control of interactive video

• US 20090327894A1
• Filed: 04/14/2009
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Novafora, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Novafora, Inc.
• Inventors: Devictor, Gilles Bruno Marie, Bronstein, Michael, Bronstein, Alexander, Rakib, Shlomo Selim
• Granted Patent: US 8,875,212 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/719
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41265 having a remote control device for bidirectional communication between the remote control device and client device unidirectional remote control device H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43076 of the same content streams on multiple devices, e.g. when family members are watching the same movie on different devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43079 of additional data with content streams on multiple devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

The present invention describes a system and method for controlling interactive video, including a remote control device allowing the user to interact with the video. The method allows bringing the “lean-forward” hypervideo experience to a “lay-back” environment such as the TV screen. The method also allows for the creation of a single system that combines both the social aspects of the “lay-back” and the “lean-forward experience” into a new type of rich media viewing experience.

Claims

1. A system to control interaction with video data and associated metadata, the video data containing video images including a plurality of objects, the metadata associated with at least one of the plurality of objects, the system comprising:

a video device configured to process the video data and generate the video images, the video device further configured to identify objects in the video images and identify metadata associated with the identified objects; and

a portable device configured to communicate with the video device and to display the video images, the portable device further configured to synchronize the display of video images with the video device, the portable device further to receive input from a user that selects an object in the video image, and wherein the portable device communicates the selected object to the video device, receives metadata associated with the selected object, and displays the received metadata to the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the portable device is a remote control device configured to wirelessly communicate with the video device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the video device is a media router.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a display device coupled to the video device, the display device configured to display the video images to a user of the portable device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the portable device includes a touch screen configured to receive user input.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the portable device is further configured to allow a user to control playback of the video images.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the video device is further configured to retrieve metadata from a remote metadata source.

8. A method of controlling interaction with video data and associated metadata, the video data containing video images, the method comprising:

processing the video images on a video device to identify a plurality of objects in the video images;

synchronizing the video images with a portable device having a video display;

receiving user input from the portable device, wherein the user input selects an object in the video image;

identifying metadata associated with the selected object; and

communicating at least a portion of the identified metadata to the portable device for display on the portable device video display.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving playback control instructions from the portable device.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving a request for additional metadata associated with an object from the portable device.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising retrieving and communicating the additional metadata associated with the object to the portable device for presentation on the portable device video display.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the metadata includes bounding boxes that mark the spatial coordinates of the objects in the video images.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the bounding boxes are used in identifying a selected object from the received user input.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein identifying metadata associated with the selected object includes retrieving metadata from a metadata source.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the metadata includes hypertext.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the metadata includes information associated with the name or identity of the selected object.

17. The method of claim 8, wherein the metadata includes an advertisement associated with the selected object.

18. A method comprising:

analyzing video data to identify a plurality of image features;

communicating the image features to a remote server;

receiving a list of objects associated with the image features from the remote server;

receiving metadata associated with the list of objects from the remote server; and

communicating the list of objects and the video data to a portable device.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising receiving identification of a selected object from the portable device.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising identifying metadata associated with the selected object and communicating the identified metadata to the portable device.