Digital multimedia editing and data management system

• US 5,852,435 A
• Filed: 04/12/1996
• Issued: 12/22/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Avid Technology Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Avid Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Hennessy, Richard D., Scott, Adrian, Morrison, William C., Pierceall, Richard M., Boucher, Roland J. Jr., Vigneaux, Stevan, Wheeler, Blair F., Mason, Philip
• Primary Examiner(s): Feild, Joseph H.
• Application Number:
  US08/631,441
• Time in Patent Office: 984 Days
• Field of Search: 345/302, 345/433, 345/327-332, 345/340, 345/132, 345/428, 345/202, 345/154, 395/200.77, 348/384, 348/6-8, 348/568, 348/392, 348/423, 370/229-238
• US Class Current: 345/428
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/41 Flat as opposed to hierarchical combination, e.g. library of tapes or discs, CD changer, or groups of record carriers that together store one title
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• 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: G11B 27/36 Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing for digital recording G11B20/00 and s.gr.; for monitoring, testing or measuring of TV recorders of the type covered by H04N5/76 and subgroups, see H04N17/06

Abstract

A digital multimedia newsroom production system allows users of the system to create, browse and catalog multimedia assets. The system includes a journalist workstation for accessing multimedia assets stored in a multimedia archive to create a multimedia storyboard of a news story to be broadcast from the system. The storyboard includes frames of video retrieved from one or more sources, and text retrieved from one or more sources or generated by a user of the journalist workstation. In one embodiment of the invention, multimedia data captured by the newsroom production system undergoes a dual digitization process to create a high resolution version of the media data and a low resolution version of the media data. The low resolution version of the media data can be efficiently stored in the system and may be transmitted over a low-bandwidth network to the journalist workstation for use in the creation of a storyboard.

Claims

1. A multimedia production system for browsing and editing multimedia data comprising:

a media recorder that digitizes the multimedia data, the media recorder including;

means for generating a first version of the multimedia data having a first video resolution; and

means for generating a second version of the multimedia data having a second video resolution; and

wherein the first video resolution is substantially different than the second video resolution;

a multimedia storage device that stores the first version of the multimedia data and the second version of the multimedia data;

a communication network coupled to the media recorder and to the multimedia storage device to transfer the first and second versions of the media data to the multimedia storage device;

an asset manager for registering each version of the multimedia data using an identifier and for relating the identifiers of the first and second versions of the multimedia data;

a first editing system connected to the multimedia storage device for creating a multimedia program using the first version of the multimedia data, wherein the first version of the multimedia data used in the multimedia program is specified using the identifier for the first version of multimedia data; and

a second editing system connected to the multimedia storage device for creating the multimedia program using the second version of the multimedia data, including means for receiving the multimedia program created on the first editing system and for identifying, using the asset manager, the second version of multimedia data corresponding to the identifier specifying the first version of multimedia data used in the multimedia program.

2. The multimedia production system of claim 1, wherein the means for generating the second version of the multimedia data includes means for compressing the second version of multimedia data.

3. The multimedia production system of claim 2, wherein the second version of the multimedia data includes broadcast television quality resolution multimedia data.

4. The multimedia production system of claim 1, wherein the second version of the multimedia data includes broadcast television quality resolution multimedia data.

5. The multimedia production system of claim 1, wherein the first editing system includes means for editing scripts corresponding to the multimedia program.

6. The multimedia production system of claim 1, wherein the first video resolution is a lower resolution than the second video resolution.

7. The multimedia production system of claim 1, wherein means for generating the first version of the multimedia data includes means for compressing the multimedia data and wherein the first video resolution substantially different than the second video resolution by an extent of compression of the first version of the multimedia data.

8. The multimedia production system of claim 1 , wherein the second editing system further comprises means for playing the multimedia program including means for substituting the identifier specifying the first version of multimedia data with an identifier specifying the second version of multimedia data.