COMPUTER-CONTROLLED VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

• US 20110162005A1
• Filed: 12/21/2010
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CryTek GmbH
• Original Assignee: CryTek GmbH
• Inventors: Yerli, Cevat
• Granted Patent: US 9,486,701 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/37
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/213 comprising photodetecting means, e.g. cameras, photodiodes or infrared cells A63F13/219, A63F13/655 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/215 comprising means for detecting acoustic signals, e.g. using a microphone
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/235 using a wireless connection, e.g. infrared or piconet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/27 characterised by a large display in a public venue, e.g. in a movie theatre, stadium or game arena
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/355 Performing operations on behalf of clients with restricted processing capabilities, e.g. servers transform changing game scene into an encoded video stream for transmitting to a mobile phone or a thin client
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1081 Input via voice recognition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1087 comprising photodetecting means, e.g. a camera
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1093 using visible light
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/407 Data transfer via internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/409 Data transfer via television network
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/538 for performing operations on behalf of the game client, e.g. rendering
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8023 the game being played by multiple players at a common site, e.g. in an arena, theatre, shopping mall using a large public display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2747 Remote storage of video programs received via the downstream path, e.g. from the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42203 sound input device, e.g. microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44218 Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face expression during a TV program methods or arrangements for recognising human body or animal bodies or body parts G06V40/10; methods or arrangements for acquiring or recognising human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions G06V40/16; methods or arrangements for recognising movements or behaviour G06V40/20; arrangements for identifying users in broadcast systems H04H60/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection

Abstract

A computer-controlled video entertainment system providing user-related input data to said system. The invention provides an rich input sensor device having direct access to an IP-based network, in particular to the Internet, for transmitting sensor signals or data derived thereof as user-related input data via the IP-based network to a remote computing device or server, preferably to a cloud of servers, which then process these input data for controlling the running entertainment program. The sensor device can be made simple, since it is mainly designed to detect user activities and to generate sensor signals which are directly transmitted as input data to the remote computer(s) or server(s). The sensor device can directly communicate with any IP-based computing device (gaming server or the like) being installed remotely and having powerful hardware and software to process the received input data.

Claims

1. A computer-controlled video entertainment system, the system comprising:

a display device for displaying video entertainment pictures to at least one user;

at least one computing device, in particular at least one server, being installed remotely from said display device and executing an entertainment software application for providing output data to be transmitted via an IP-based network to said the display device to display the video entertainment pictures;

a sensor device being installed in the vicinity of said display device and comprising at least one optical sensory element and at least one acoustic sensory element for providing user-related input data as rich input data to be processed by said entertainment software application, the sensor device further comprising a network interface for transmitting said input data via said IP-based network to said at least one computing device.

2. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein the at least one computing device is constituted by a plurality of remotely installed computing servers being linked to each other to form a cluster or cloud of computing servers to form an overall cloud.

3. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 2, wherein the computing servers are linked to each other via said IP-based network.

4. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said IP-based network is constituted by the Internet.

5. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said network interface of said sensor device is a wired or wireless Internet module.

6. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said sensor device comprises a sensor module with at least one sensory element for detecting user activities, in particular natural user inputs such as physical gestures and/or speech, and for producing sensor signals.

7. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 6, wherein said sensor device further comprises a processing unit for processing said sensor signals to generate said user-related input data representing said detected user activities.

8. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 7, wherein the processing unit provides said user-related input data to said network interface for being transmitted via said IP-based network to said at least one computing device.

9. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 6, wherein said at least one sensor element is an optical sensor for detecting physical gestures or appearance, an acoustical sensor for detecting user-produced speech, sound or noise and/or a thermal sensor for detecting physical condition by temperature.

10. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 7, wherein said processing unit receives from said sensor elements the sensor signals and generates raw input data which represent said sensor signals.

11. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 7, wherein said processing unit receives from said sensor elements the sensor signals and pre-processes these signals to generate said input data, in particular by applying signal and/or data recognition to generate input data which represent recognized user-related input patterns, in particular gestures and/or speech commands.

12. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 11, wherein said processing unit receives sensor signals which relate to a plurality of users and processes these signals to generate collective input data, in particular by applying signal and/or data recognition to generate collective input data which represent recognized multi-user or user-group-related input patterns, in particular collective gestures and/or collective speech commands.

13. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said sensor device further comprises a visual output or projection module to output visual data to said at least one user, in particular laser-based projection allowing user activities.

14. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said sensor device further comprises a wired or wireless interface/networking module to receive further input data from external user input devices, in particular form gamepads, joysticks, keypads, keyboards.

15. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein the sensor device comprises at least two optical sensory elements and at least one acoustic sensory element.

16. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said at least one interface of said sensor device is at least one of the following interfaces:

a wired or wireless network interface for an IP-based network, in particular for the Internet,

a wireless interface module, and/or

a wired interface connector for providing a wired or wireless connection between said sensor device and said at least one computing device being a single computing devices or a plurality of computing devices, in at least one game console, server and/or server cloud.

17. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said sensor device is a built-in device being installed in said display device and/or computing device.

18. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said display device being a consumer display device, in particular a flat screen display or a TV set.

19. The computer-controlled video entertainment system of claim 1, wherein said computing device being a game console, a DVD and/or BlueRay player, a set top box and/or a mobile communications and/or entertainment device.