Tool for Grouping Media Clips for a Media Editing Application

• US 20100278504A1
• Filed: 01/15/2010
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Warner, Peter, Lyons, Charles, DeVore, Douglas, Van Wazer, Wendy
• Granted Patent: US 9,032,299 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/854 Content authoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8227 the additional signal being at least another television signal

Abstract

For a media-editing application that creates composite presentations, a novel grouping tool for grouping several media clips in the composite presentation by drawing a boundary about the media clips is described. The media editing application includes a composite display area for displaying media clips that are part of the composite presentation. The composite display area includes a timeline and one or more tracks that span the timeline for holding one or more media clips. The grouping tool provides a drawing tool that allows a user to draw a boundary in the composite display area. The drawing tool includes a moveable drawing element that moves about the media clips in the composite display area in order to draw the boundary.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium storing a media-editing application for creating multimedia presentations, the application comprising a graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI comprising:

a composite display area for displaying a set of graphical representations of a set of media clips that are part of a composite presentation; and

a grouping tool for drawing a boundary about a plurality of media clips in the composite display area in order to create a grouping of media clips.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein said grouping tool comprises a drawing tool for drawing the boundary.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein said grouping tool further comprises a moveable drawing user interface (UI) element for moving about the plurality of media clips to draw the boundary.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the composite display area comprises a plurality of tracks that span a timeline, wherein the drawn boundary crosses the plurality of tracks in the composite display area.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 3, wherein the moveable drawing UI element is for moving across a plurality of tracks in order to create the grouping of media clips.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the drawing tool is for drawing at least two borders in order to draw the boundary.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the drawing tool is further for adjusting at least one of the borders.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein adjusting the border comprises identifying the border and displaying the border as a border with at least one segment that is user-adjustable.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the drawing tool is for automatically drawing at least one of the borders after receiving a user'"'"'s selection of a location in the composite display area, wherein automatically drawing the border comprises drawing the border from a first location to a second location of the composite display area without further user input, wherein the first location is a location received from the user, wherein the first location is on one side of a plurality of tracks and the second location is on another side of the plurality of tracks.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the GUI further comprises a plurality of elements that are selectable through a cursor, wherein when the grouping tool is activated, the drawing tool changes the cursor representation in the composite display area to a moveable drawing element.

6. (canceled)

11. (canceled)

12. (canceled)

12-1. (canceled)

14. A computer readable medium storing a computer program for execution by one or more processing units, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying a set of graphical representations of a set of media clips that are part of a composite presentation in a composite display area; and

drawing a boundary about a plurality of media clips in the composite display area using a grouping tool in order to create a grouping of media clips.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein said composite display area comprises a plurality of tracks for holding a plurality of media clips.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the boundary comprises one or more non-linear borders, wherein the borders comprise a plurality of segments, wherein the segments correspond to edges of media clips in the tracks.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions for associating a plurality of media clips that are within the boundary with the grouping of media clips.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions for excluding at least one media clip that is within the boundary from the grouping of media clips.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the computer program further comprises instructions for moving the media clips in the grouping together in the composite display area and excluding a media clip with a location in the composite display area that has to be maintained independently from the grouped clips.

32. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the grouping of media clips comprises a logical boundary for abutting the grouping of media clips with another grouping of media clips in a timeline.

33. The computer readable medium of claim 32, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for placing in a subtrack a media clip associated with the grouping of media clips that extends beyond the logical boundary.

35. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for allowing a user to use a hot key to add a media clip to the grouping of media clips by appending the media clip to the grouping based on an end of the grouping.

15. (canceled)

16. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

23. A method of defining a media-editing application for creating multimedia presentations, the method comprising:

defining a composite display area for displaying a set of graphical representations of a set of media clips that are part of a composite presentation; and

defining a grouping tool for drawing a boundary about a plurality of media clips in the composite display area in order to create a grouping of media clips.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising defining a navigation tool comprising a plurality of selectable navigation markers associated with a plurality of navigable locations in the composite presentation, wherein the selection of a navigation marker causes the composite display area to present the navigable location in the composite presentation that is associated with the selected navigation marker.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein said navigation marker is generated when the grouping of media clips is created.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein said navigation marker comprises an image in a media clip associated with the grouping of the media clips, wherein the image is a representative image for the grouping of media clips.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein the selection of said navigation marker further causes the media editing application to identify the grouping of media clips in the composite display area.

31. The method of claim 25, wherein said navigation marker is for moving the grouping of media clips in a timeline by moving the navigation marker in the navigation tool.

27. (canceled)

29. (canceled)

30. (canceled)

34. (canceled)

36-40. -40. (canceled)