METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MEDIA NAVIGATION

• US 20100005104A1
• Filed: 09/17/2009
• Published: 01/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Gracenote, Inc. (RR Donnelley & Sons Company)
• Original Assignee: Gracenote, Inc. (RR Donnelley & Sons Company)
• Inventors: Brenner, Vadim, DiMaria, Peter C., Cremer, Markus K., Roberts, Dale T.
• Application Number:
  US12/561,293
• Publication Number:
  US 20100005104A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/44 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/637 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialization, adaptation or distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/64 Browsing; Visualisation therefor generation of a list or set of audio data G06F16/638
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content

Abstract

A method and system for media navigation. A descriptor hierarchy may be accessed. The descriptor hierarchy may include at least one category list. One or more media descriptors may be accessed for a plurality of media items. The plurality of media items may be accessible from a plurality of sources. The one or more media descriptors may be mapped to the at least one category list. The navigation may be processed through a user interface to enable selection of the plurality of media items from the plurality of sources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing media descriptors for a plurality of media items, the media items provided by a plurality of different media sources;

accessing a media descriptor hierarchy, the media descriptor hierarchy comprising at least one unified category list;

mapping the media descriptors to the at least one unified category list; and

providing a user interface to display the at least one unified category list to allow a user to select at least one media item in the at least one unified category list.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of different media sources comprises at least two media sources selected from the group consisting of a satellite radio station, an FM radio station, an AM radio station, an HD radio station, an Internet radio station, a TV station, a Compact Disk (CD), a portable media player, a mobile phone, and a local media database, and an online media database.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the media items comprise digital audio tracks or digital video tracks.

4. The method of claim 3, comprising displaying track names of media items that have media descriptors mapped to the at least one unified category list.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the media descriptor describes the media item and is a genre, an origin, a recording era, a composition era, an artist type, a tempo, a mood, a situation, a work type, a topic, personal historical context, a community historical context, and/or a timbre of the media item.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each media descriptor is represented by a code.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each media descriptor comprises a weighting to indicate a relevance of the media descriptor relative to at least one other media descriptor.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptor hierarchy defines a plurality of parent/child relationships of a plurality of unified category lists, and wherein at least one media descriptor is mapped to each unified category list.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the unified category list comprise one or more of Album, Edition, Release, SKU, Disc, Track, Recording, Movement and/or Composition of a media item.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of descriptor hierarchies are provided, each descriptor hierarchy corresponding to a region hierarchy, a demographic hierarchy, a psychographic hierarchy, genre hierarchy, an era hierarchy, an origin hierarchy, a navigation tree, an artist type hierarchy, an alternate recording hierarchy, and/or a mapping of the media items.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of unified category lists are provided, each unified category list corresponding to a region, a demographic, a psychographic, genre, an era hierarchy, an origin, a navigation tree, an artist type, and/or an alternate recording.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one unified category list comprises a plurality of levels, higher levels in the unified category list including fewer items than lower levels in the unified category list.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one media descriptor is embedded in a media item.

14. The method of claim 1, where accessing the media descriptors comprises:

performing a digital signal processing (DSP) analysis on plurality of media items; and

accessing the descriptors for the plurality of media items based on the DSP analysis of the plurality of media items.

15. The method of claim 1, where accessing the media descriptors for media content comprises:

obtaining a digital fingerprinting of each of the plurality of media items; and

accessing the media descriptors for the plurality of media items based on the digital fingerprinting.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface displays at least a portion of a navigation tree derived from the media descriptor hierarchy.

17. The method of claim 1, comprising displaying a portion of a unified category list on the user interface.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising providing a plurality of navigation trees selected from a region navigation tree, an application parameter navigation tree, a device parameter navigation tree, a user type navigation tree, and/or a third party the navigation tree.

19. Apparatus comprising:

memory to store instructions; and

at least one processor to execute the instructions to;

access media descriptors for a plurality of media items, the media items provided by a plurality of different media sources;

access a media descriptor hierarchy, the media descriptor hierarchy comprising at least one unified category list;

map the media descriptors to the at least one unified category list; and

provide a user interface to display the at least one unified category list to allow a user to select at least one media item in the at least one unified category list.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the plurality of different media sources comprises at least two media sources selected from the group consisting of a satellite radio station, an FM radio station, an AM radio station, an HD radio station, an Internet radio station, a TV station, a Compact Disk (CD), a portable media player, a mobile phone, and a local media database, and an online media database.

21. The apparatus of claim 19, comprising local storage to store media items in the form of digital audio tracks or digital video tracks.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the track names of media items are displayed that have media descriptors mapped to the at least one unified category list.

23. A machine-readable medium embodying instructions which, when executed by the machine cause the machine to:

access media descriptors for a plurality of media items, the media items provided by a plurality of different media sources;

access a media descriptor hierarchy, the media descriptor hierarchy comprising at least one unified category list;

map the media descriptors to the at least one unified category list; and

provide a user interface to display the at least one unified category list to allow a user to select at least one media item in the at least one unified category list.