APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SEARCHING MULTIMEDIA CONTENT

• US 20130139203A1
• Filed: 01/28/2013
• Published: 05/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Inventors: LEE, Hyeon-ji, KIM, Joon-hwan
• Granted Patent: US 9,467,747 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/53
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4345 Extraction or processing of SI, e.g. extracting service information from an MPEG stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4524 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; systems specially adapted for using geographical information in broadcast systems H04H60/70; protocols in which the network application is adapted for the location of the user terminal in communication control or processing H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47214 for content reservation or setting reminders; for requesting event notification, e.g. of sport results or stock market stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; notification of incoming messages in packet switching networks H04L51/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4825 using a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlists
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8153 comprising still images, e.g. texture, background image
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/445 for displaying additional information H04N5/50 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

A multimedia content searching apparatus includes: an image receiving unit that receives an image having additional information from an external device; an additional information reading unit that reads the additional information from the image received from the image receiving unit; a multimedia content searching unit that recommends a multimedia content to a user by searching for the multimedia content which is related to the additional information using the additional information read by the additional information reading unit; and an information comparing unit that compares the additional information read by the additional information reading unit with multimedia content information provided from a content provider, and the multimedia content searching unit searches for the multimedia content related to the additional information based on the result of the comparison by the information comparing unit.

Claims

1. A multimedia content searching apparatus comprising:

an image receiving unit that receives an image having additional information from an external device;

an additional information reading unit that reads the additional information from the image received from the image receiving unit;

a multimedia content searching unit that recommends a multimedia content to a user by searching for the multimedia content which is related to the additional information using the additional information read by the additional information reading unit; and

an information comparing unit that compares the additional information read by the additional information reading unit with multimedia content information provided from a content provider,

wherein the multimedia content searching unit searches for the multimedia content related to the additional information based on the result of the comparison by the information comparing unit.

2. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the additional information comprises global positioning system (GPS) information and the image comprises a photograph.

3. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the multimedia content comprises a TV program, a video on demand (VOD), a user created content (UCC) and an electronic program guide (EPG).

4. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising a display which broadcasts the TV program currently being provided by a TV channel, wherein the TV program matches the additional information provided from the external device as user input and wherein the TV program comprises at least one of travel guides, fishing, food, and tourist resort for the location identified by the additional information.

5. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a region information extracting unit that extracts particular region information using the additional information read by the additional information reading unit,

wherein the information comparing unit compares the region information extracted by the region information extracting unit with the multimedia content information provided from the content provider, and

wherein the multimedia content searching unit searches for the multimedia content related to the region information based on the result of the comparison by the information comparing unit.

6. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising a controller that controls the image receiving unit, the additional information reading unit, the region information extracting unit, the information comparing unit and the multimedia content searching unit.

7. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a display unit that displays the result of the search by the multimedia content searching unit.

8. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the display unit displays the result of search by the multimedia content searching unit by directly tuning to a related TV channel, by displaying an arrayed representative set of pictures of related TV channels currently broadcasting on the entire screen or by displaying a list of channels which will be broadcasted in the future.

9. The multimedia content searching apparatus of claim 7, wherein the result of the search is displayed to enable a reservation for viewing in advance or a reserved recording.

10. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a memory that stores the image having the additional information, multimedia content information and various kinds of data and programs.

11. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image having additional information is a user query received from the external device by the image receiving unit and wherein the multimedia content searching unit searches for multimedia contents being broadcast by program channels based on the additional information without the received image, where the additional information is extracted from the query.

12. The multimedia content searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the multimedia content searching unit compares the additional information extracted from the image received as user query from another external device with the multimedia content information provided by the external device.

13. A multimedia content searching method comprising:

receiving an image with additional information from an external device;

reading the additional information from the received image;

comparing the read additional information with multimedia content information provided from a content provider; and

recommending a multimedia content by searching for the multimedia content related to the additional information using the read additional information,

wherein the multimedia content related to the additional information is searched based on a result of comparison.

14. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 13, wherein the additional information comprises global positioning system (GPS) information and the image comprises a photograph.

15. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 13, wherein the multimedia content comprises a TV program, a video on demand (VOD), a user created content (UCC) and an electronic program guide (EPG).

16. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 13, further comprising extracting particular region information using the read additional information,

wherein the extracted region information is compared with the multimedia content information provided from the content provider, and

wherein the multimedia content related to the region information is searched for based on the result of the comparison.

17. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 13, further comprising displaying a result of search.

18. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 17, wherein the displaying the result of search comprises displaying to directly tune to a related TV channel, to an arrayed representative set of pictures of related TV channels currently broadcasting on the entire screen or to display a list of channels which will be broadcasted at a future time.

19. The multimedia content searching method according to claim 18, wherein, if the result of search is displayed as the list of channels which will be broadcasted at a future time, the result of search is displayed to enable a reservation for viewing in advance or a reserved recording.