MEDIA PORTABILITY AND COMPATIBILITY FOR DIFFERENT DESTINATION PLATFORMS

• US 20100169753A1
• Filed: 12/31/2008
• Published: 07/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Lui, Kai Chung, Chen, Jeffrey Chao-Nan, Li, Barn-Wan
• Granted Patent: US 8,578,259 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/201
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs

Abstract

Tools and techniques for media portability and compatibility for different destination platforms are provided. These tools may receive commands to launch a media portability capability, and may receive source media as input for transformation. These tools may also receive indications of profile settings for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability on destination systems for playback. The source media may be transformed in response to the profile setting, with the transformed media inserted into a document. The tools may then distribute the document to the destination system for playback

Claims

1. Apparatus comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when loaded into a processor and executed, cause the processor to:

receive at least one command to launch a media portability capability;

receive at least one instance of source media as input for transformation;

receive an indication of at least one profile setting for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability on at least one destination system for playback;

transform the source media in response to the profile setting;

insert the transformed media into at least one document; and

distribute the document to the at least one destination system for playback.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to receive at least one command to launch an application associated with the document.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to receive at least a second instance of source media for transformation.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, further comprising instructions to transform the second instance of the source media in response to the profile setting.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, further comprising instructions to insert the transformed second instance of the source media into the document.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to define an alpha mask associated with the source media, wherein the alpha mask specifies visual effects for combination with the transformed source media when the destination system plays back the transformed source media.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, further comprising instructions to insert the alpha mask into the document.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to define the profile setting to reduce a document size of the transformed media relative to a document size of the source media.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to define the profile setting to transform the source file into a format compatible with the destination system.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to define the profile setting to achieve a targeted visual quality when rendering the transformed media on the destination system.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to select a format for encoding the source media based on performance capabilities of the destination system.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to present an interactive user interface for obtaining the profile setting.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to obtain the profile setting programmatically through an object model.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to define a plurality of the profile settings, wherein the profile settings represent different trade-offs between a plurality of different factors related to transforming the source media into the transformed media for distribution to the destination systems.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising instructions to:

receive an indication of at least a further profile setting for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability on at least a further destination system for playback;

transform the source media in response to the further profile setting;

insert the transformed media into at least a further document associated with the software application; and

distribute the document at least to the further destination system for playback

16. A computer-implemented process comprising:

receiving at least one command to launch a media portability capability provided by a first computing system;

receiving at least one instance of source media as input for transformation on the first computing system;

receiving an indication of at least one profile setting for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability on at least one destination computing system for playback;

transforming the source media in response to the profile setting;

inserting the transformed media into at least one document; and

distributing the document to the at least one destination system for playback.

17. The transformed media produced by the process of claim 16.

18. Apparatus comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when loaded into a processor and executed, cause the processor to:

receive at least one command to launch a media portability capability provided by a software application into which the media portability capability is integrated;

receive at least one instance of source media as input for transformation into portable media compatible with a plurality of destination systems;

define a plurality of profile settings, wherein the profile settings represent different trade-offs between a plurality of different factors related to transforming the source media into the portable media for distribution to the destination systems;

receive a selection of one of the profile settings, from the plurality of profile settings, for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability and compatibility when played back on at least one of the destination systems;

transform the source media into the portable media in response to the selected profile setting;

insert the transformed media into at least one document associated with the software application; and

distribute the document at least to the destination system for playback.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising instructions to:

receive an indication of at least a further profile setting for specifying how to transform the source media for enhanced portability on at least a further destination system for playback;

transform the source media in response to the further profile setting;

insert the transformed media into at least a further document associated with the software application; and

distribute the document at least to the further destination system for playback.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising instructions to:

receive at least a second instance of source media for transformation;

transform the second instance of the source media in response to the profile setting; and

insert the transformed second instance of the source media into the document.