Method and apparatus for multimedia editing and data recovery
First Claim
1. Apparatus for editing a multimedia file comprised of a sequential plurality of data units generated by sampling an analog signal and encoding each sample as a data unit, and each of the plurality of data units being located in a physical file having an address indicating the start of the physical file and a physical file length, the apparatus operating under control of an editing application and comprising:
- apparatus responsive to the physical file address and length for constructing a node representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file, the node comprising the physical file address, and a physical position of the represented file segment in the physical file;
apparatus responsive to editing commands generated by the editing application for changing information contained in the node in order to edit the represented file segment; and
apparatus responsive to the physical file address and length of each of the plurality of file segments for constructing a linked list comprising a plurality of said nodes.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A specialized linked-list editing structure is used to order multimedia file segments in a multimedia file to be edited. Each multimedia file segment is comprised of a number of contiguous data units, which may preferably be bytes, that are portions of the overall multimedia file even though the file segments may be physically located in different data files. The linked list is arranged as a plurality of nodes where each node represents a single file segment and the linked list orders all of the file segments to make up the entire multimedia file. Accordingly, editing can be performed at the data unit level so that both compressed and uncompressed files can be handled. Editing operations on the file result in changes to this linked-list structure instead of the file itself, thus avoiding the necessity of making file copies. More particularly, the linked-list structure consists of a list of records called "file descriptor nodes". Each node comprises a record which contains information about a corresponding file segment, including, the address of the physical file in which the segment is located, the physical position of the segment in its file, the length in data units of the segment and a "logical starting position" number which indicates the position of the file segment relative to other segments in the overall multimedia file so that a particular segment can be located during a seek operation.
75 Citations
22 Claims
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1. Apparatus for editing a multimedia file comprised of a sequential plurality of data units generated by sampling an analog signal and encoding each sample as a data unit, and each of the plurality of data units being located in a physical file having an address indicating the start of the physical file and a physical file length, the apparatus operating under control of an editing application and comprising:
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apparatus responsive to the physical file address and length for constructing a node representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file, the node comprising the physical file address, and a physical position of the represented file segment in the physical file; apparatus responsive to editing commands generated by the editing application for changing information contained in the node in order to edit the represented file segment; and apparatus responsive to the physical file address and length of each of the plurality of file segments for constructing a linked list comprising a plurality of said nodes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. Apparatus for editing a multimedia file comprised of a sequential plurality of data units generated by sampling an analog signal and encoding each sample as a data unit, the multimedia file being comprised of a plurality of file segments, each of the plurality of file segments having an address indicating a physical file in which each file segment is located and a length comprising a number of data units in each file segment, the multimedia file editing apparatus operating under control of an editing application and comprising:
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apparatus responsive to the file segment address and file segment length of each of the plurality of file segments for constructing a linked list comprising a plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of nodes representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising each file segment of the multimedia file, each node comprising the physical file address of the represented file segment, a physical position of the represented file segment in the physical file in which the segment is located, a logical starting position indicating the position of a first data unit in the represented file segment relative to the plurality of data units in the multimedia file and the number of data units in the represented file segment; apparatus responsive to editing commands generated by the editing application for adding and removing nodes from the linked list in order to insert and delete data units from the multimedia file; and apparatus responsive to editing commands generated by the editing application for changing information contained in a node in order to insert and delete data units from the multimedia file. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A method for editing a multimedia file comprised of a sequential plurality of data units generated by sampling an analog signal and encoding each sample as a data unit, and each of the plurality of data units being located in a physical file having an address indicating the start of the physical file, the method operating in cooperation with an editing application and comprising the steps of:
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A. constructing a node representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file, the node comprising the physical file address, and a physical position of the represented file segment in the physical file, B. changing information contained in the node in order to edit the represented file segment in response to editing commands generated by the editing application; and C. constructing a linked list comprising a plurality of said nodes, each of said nodes representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A computer program product comprising:
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a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein for editing a multimedia file comprised of a sequential plurality of data units generated by sampling an analog signal and encoding each sample as a data unit, each of the plurality of data units being located in a physical file having an address indicating the start of the physical file, the computer program product further comprising; program code means for constructing a node representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file, the node comprising the physical file address, and a physical position of the represented file segment in the physical file, program code means for changing information contained in the node in order to edit the represented file segment in response to editing commands generated by the editing application; and program code means for constructing a linked list comprising a plurality of said nodes, each of said nodes representing a sequential plurality of data units comprising a segment of the multimedia file. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification