Streaming media search and continuous playback of multiple media resources located on a network

• US 6,725,275 B2
• Filed: 09/20/2002
• Issued: 04/20/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Friskit
• Original Assignee: Friskit
• Inventors: Eyal, Aviv
• Primary Examiner(s): Lim, Krisna
• Application Number:
  US10/251,238
• Publication Number:
  US 20030018799A1
• Time in Patent Office: 578 Days
• Field of Search: 709/231, 709/245, 709/223, 707/10, 345/327
• US Class Current: 709/231
• 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: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A playback system is provided to locate and playback streaming media from network resources. The playback system includes a search module that signals a query to a network site, and receives in return a search result. The search result identifies one or more links that are selectable to open media files. A media player couples to the search module to automatically play back streaming media contained in media files located by the search result.

Claims

1. A media playback platform comprising:

a search module that sends a search request to a first network site to receive a search result, and in response to receiving the search result, identifies a plurality of media resource locators, the media resource locators comprising information for identifying locations of media resources on the network, including a first media resource locator of a first media resource located at a second network site, and a second media resource locator of a second media resource located at a third network site; and

a media player directly controllable by the search module in order to receive the first media resource locator and the second media resource locator, wherein the media player plays back the first media resource using the first media resource locator, and then plays back the second media resource using the second media resource locator substantially automatically after playing back the first media resource.

2. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a corresponding network site.

3. The media playback platform of claim 2, wherein the first media resource and the second media resource are located on a common domain on the network.

4. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a media resource located on the network.

5. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a link to a corresponding network site.

6. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the first media resource and the second media resource are located on a common server that is remote to a terminal upon which the media player resides.

7. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a network address where a corresponding media resource is located.

8. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the search module is programmatically configured to directly communicate with the media player in order to playback the first media resource and the second media resource substantially automatically.

9. The media playback platform of claim 1, further comprising a user-interface upon which a user-query is received, and wherein the search request sent by the search module is based on the user-query.

10. The media playback platform of claim 1, further comprising a user-interface upon which a user selection is received, and wherein the search request sent by the search module is based on the user selection.

11. The media playback platform of claim 10, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site using one or more search fields identified from the user-query.

12. The media playback platform of claim 10, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site using one or more search fields identified from the user selection.

13. The media playback platform of claim 10, wherein the search request sent by the search module is based on the user-selection of one or more search fields selected from the group of search fields consisting of a recording artist name, a performing artist name, a composer name, a song title, a genre of music, a sound compilation name, and a type of media file.

14. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the search module controls a web browser component in order to automatically display one or more resources from a first web site that is associated with at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while the media player plays back streaming media from a media file having a location identified by the at least one of the media resource locators.

15. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the media player controls a web browser component in order to automatically display one or more resources from a first web site that is associated with at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while the media player plays back streaming media from a media file having a location identified by the at least one of the media resource locators.

16. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the media player controls a display component in order to automatically display information from a network site, wherein the information is associated with at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while the media player plays back streaming media from a media file having a location identified by the at least one of the media resource locators.

17. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the search module controls a display component in order to automatically display information from a network site, wherein the information is associated with at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while the media player plays back streaming media from a media file having a location identified by the at least one of the media resource locators.

18. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site to identify one or more media files containing audio digital recordings.

19. The media playback platform of claim 1, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site to identify media resource locators to media resources containing video and/or audio digital recordings, and wherein the media player loads the first media resource and the second media resource to play back the video and/or audio digital recordings.

20. A media playback system operated on a terminal coupled to a network, the media playback system comprising:

a search module that sends a user-defined search request to one or more network sites to receive one or more search results, the one or more search results identifying a plurality of media resource locators, wherein each media resource locator includes information for identifying locations of media resources on the network; and

a media player directly controllable by the search module to access and control play back of at least some of the media resources identified by the plurality of media resource locators, so that the media player plays back two or more of the media resources substantially automatically and sequentially.

21. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the media player is programmatically controlled to automatically and sequentially playback the media resources.

22. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein each of the plurality of media resource locators corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a corresponding network site.

23. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein each of the plurality of media resource locators corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a media resource located on the network.

24. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein each of the plurality of media resource locators corresponds to a link to a corresponding network site.

25. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the one or more search results received by the search module include, as the plurality of media resource locators, at least a first link for locating a first media file at a first network site, and a second link for locating a second media file at a second network site.

26. The media playback system of claim 25, wherein the media player automatically accesses and loads the first media file using the first link and the second media file using the second link, so that playback of the streaming media from the first media file and the second media file is automatic and sequential.

27. The media playback system of claim 26, wherein the search module formulates each search request so as to include a uniform resource locator including metadata information specific to a corresponding one of the one or more network sites for receiving the search request, the metadata information being derived from the user-query.

28. The media player of claim 27, wherein the search module formulates each search request into the uniform resource locator to include an address to the corresponding one of the one or more network sites, and arguments to search for streaming media on the corresponding one of the one or more network sites.

29. The media playback system of claim 25, wherein the first network site has a first domain address, and the second network site has a second domain address that is different than the first domain address, so that the media player plays back streaming media from the first domain and the second domain automatically and sequentially.

30. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the search module formulates a user-query into the search request directed to the one or more network sites.

31. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the search module formulates a user-query into a plurality of search requests, each of the plurality of search requests being directed to one of the one or more network sites.

32. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the search module sends at least a portion of the one or more search results to a play-list module, the play-list module arranging a plurality of media resource locators from the portion of the one or more search results into a designated order, each of the plurality of media resource locators identifying a network address for a corresponding media file, the media player receiving the plurality of media resource locators in the designated order.

33. The media playback system of claim 20, further comprising a user-interface to receive a user-query for formulating the search request to each of the one or more network sites.

34. The media playback system of claim 33, wherein the user-query comprises one or more search strings or menu selections.

35. The media playback system of claim 34, wherein the user-query is a request for streaming media playback of a specified category.

36. The media playback system of claim 34, wherein the user-query is sent automatically in response to a user of the terminal opening a web browser.

37. The media playback system of claim 20, wherein the plurality of media resource locators include one or more links that are selectable to access media resources, and wherein the search module includes a parsing component to parse each of the one or more search results for links that are selectable to open media files.

38. A media playback system coupled to a network, the media playback system comprising:

a user-interface to receive a user-query;

a search module to send a search request based on the user-query to one or more network sites, and to receive from the one or more network sites at least a first search result that references a plurality of media resources, each of the media resources having a corresponding network site; and

a media player configured to access the network sites of at least some of the media resources referenced in the first search result, and to control playback of at least some of the media resources referenced in the first search result, wherein the media player controls playback of the at least some of the media resources to be substantially automatic and sequential.

39. The playback system of claim 38, further comprising:

a parsing component to parse one or more search results sent back from a network search engine at each of the one or more network sites, the one or more search results containing a plurality of links that are selectable to open media files; and

wherein the parsing component implements a separate parsing logic for parsing the search result from the network sites.

40. The playback system of claim 38, wherein the first search result includes a plurality of network pages, each of the network pages containing one or more links that are selectable to open media files, and wherein the parsing component parses each page of the first search result to identify the plurality of links for that network site.

41. The playback system of claim 40, wherein the parsing component detects a next page link on a first page of the first search result using a first parsing logic, and in response to detecting the next page link, uses the first parsing logic to parse a second network page of the first search result.

42. A media playback platform comprising:

a search module that sends a search request to a first network site to receive a search result, and in response to receiving the search result, identifies a plurality of media resource locators, the media resource locators comprising information for identifying locations of media resources on the network, including a first media resource locator of a first media resource located at a second network site, and a second media resource locator of a second media resource located at a third network site; and

a media player configured to directly receive the first media resource locator and the second media resource locator from the search module, wherein the media player plays back the first media resource using the first media resource locator, and then plays back the second media resource using the second media resource locator substantially automatically after playing back the first media resource.

43. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a corresponding network site.

44. The media playback platform of claim 43, wherein the first media resource and the second media resource are located on a common domain on the network.

45. The media playback platform of claim 44, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site using one or more search fields identified from the user-query.

46. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a media resource located on the network.

47. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a link to a corresponding network site.

48. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the first media resource and the second media resource are located on a common server that is remote to a terminal upon which the media player resides.

49. The media playback platform of claim 48, wherein the search request sent by the search module includes one or more search fields selected from the group of search fields consisting of an artist name, a media title, a genre of media, and a type of media file.

50. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a network address where a corresponding media resource is located.

51. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the media player is programmatically configured to directly communicate with the search module in order to receive the first media resource locator and the second media resource locator.

52. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the media player is configured to be directly communicable from the search module in order to receive the first media resource locator and the second media resource locator.

53. The media playback platform of claim 42, further comprising a user-interface upon which a user-query is received, and wherein the search request sent by the search module is based on the user-query.

54. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the search module includes a web browser component that is configured to automatically display one or more resources from a first web site that is located by at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while playing back streaming media from a media file opened by the at least one media resource locator in the search result.

55. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the search module is coupleable to a web browser component that is configured to automatically display one or more resources from a first web site that is located by at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while playing back streaming media from a media file opened by the at least one media resource locator in the search result.

56. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the media player is coupleable to a web browser component that is configured to automatically display one or more resources from a first web site that is located by at least one of the media resource locators in the search result while playing back streaming media from a media file opened by the at least one media resource locator in the search result.

57. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site to identify one or more media files containing audio digital recordings.

58. The media playback platform of claim 42, wherein the search module sends the search request to the first network site to identify media resource locators to media resources containing video and/or audio digital recordings, and wherein the media player loads the first media resource and the second media resource to play back the video and/or audio digital recordings.

59. A system for playing media resources, the system comprising:

a search module configured to (i) transmit to a first network site a search request for media resources, and (ii) receive from the first network site a search result that identifies a plurality of media resource locators corresponding with the search request, the media resource locators comprising information for identifying locations of the media resources, wherein the search result comprises a first media resource locator of a first media resource located at a second network site, and a second media resource locator of a second media resource located at a third network site; and

a media player to play the first media resource using the first media resource locator, then to play the second media resource using the second media resource locator substantially automatically.

60. The system of claim 59, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a corresponding network site.

61. The system of claim 59, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a uniform resource locator of a media resource located on the network.

62. The system of claim 59, wherein each media resource locator corresponds to a link to a corresponding network site.

63. The system of claim 59, wherein the search module identifies the first media resource locator and the second media resource locator from a common domain on the network.