Methods and apparatus for archiving, indexing and accessing audio and video data
First Claim
1. A method of processing image data representing at least one image, the method comprising:
- receiving information including at least one of image quality information and image use information;
selecting a first encoding format from a plurality of supported encoding formats as a function of said received information;
selecting the quality level at which the at least one image represented by said image data is to be encoded using the selected encoding format based on the received information, wherein the quality level is selected from a plurality of supported encoding quality levels including at least a first quality level which is a lossless or near loss-less quality level;
a second quality level which is a contribution quality level; and
a third quality level which is a distribution quality level, the distribution quality level being the level of image quality to be used for distribution of the image to an end viewer;
encoding said image data according to the first encoding format to thereby generate first encoded image data representing said image; and
storing the first encoded image data using a digital data storage device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Archival storage and retrieval of audio/video information is described. Audio and/or video information is digitized, compressed and stored in an intermediate archive format (IAF), which preserves the content at a high-enough quality for subsequent retrieval and conversion into various formats required at the time of use or distribution. A single capture operation is performed with ancillary metadata being added to facilitate subsequent searching, indexing and format conversion. Captured data content is catalogued and indexed at or subsequent to the creation of an IAF file that includes the archived information. The IAF includes a family of audio-video digital encoding formats based on public standards. The encoding format used in any particular application is determined at encoding time from information provided by the archive system user. At encoding, the particular encoding scheme is selected to optimize a tradeoff between storage constraints and end use quality requirements.
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Citations
35 Claims
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1. A method of processing image data representing at least one image, the method comprising:
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receiving information including at least one of image quality information and image use information; selecting a first encoding format from a plurality of supported encoding formats as a function of said received information; selecting the quality level at which the at least one image represented by said image data is to be encoded using the selected encoding format based on the received information, wherein the quality level is selected from a plurality of supported encoding quality levels including at least a first quality level which is a lossless or near loss-less quality level;
a second quality level which is a contribution quality level; and
a third quality level which is a distribution quality level, the distribution quality level being the level of image quality to be used for distribution of the image to an end viewer;encoding said image data according to the first encoding format to thereby generate first encoded image data representing said image; and storing the first encoded image data using a digital data storage device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of processing image data representing at least one image, the method comprising:
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receiving information including at least one of image quality information and image use information; selecting a first encoding format from a plurality of supported encoding formats as a function of said received information; encoding said image data according to the first encoding format to thereby generate first encoded image data representing said image; storing the first encoded image data using a digital data storage device; retrieving the first encoded image data from the digital data storage device; converting the first encoded image data from the first encoding format to a second encoding format to produce second encoded image data, the second encoded format being different from the first encoding format; outputting the second encoded image data; converting the first encoded image data from the first encoding format to a third encoding format to produce third encoded image data, the third encoded format being different from the first and second encoding formats; and outputting the third encoded image data. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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21. A digital storage medium comprising computer executable instructions for controlling a computer system to:
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receive information including at least one of image quality information and image use information; select a first encoding format from a plurality of supported encoding formats as a function of said received information; select the quality level at which the at least one image represented by said image data is to be encoded using the selected encoding format based on the received information, wherein the quality level is selected from a plurality of supported encoding quality levels including at least a first quality level which is a lossless or near loss-less quality level;
a second quality level which is a intermediate quality level that is lower than said first quality level; and
a third quality level which is a distribution quality level, the distribution quality level being lower than the second quality level and being the level of image quality to be used for distribution of the image to an end viewer;encode image data according to the first encoding format to thereby generate first encoded image data representing said image; and store the first encoded image data using a digital data storage device.
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22. A system for processing and storing at least one of audio and video data, the system comprising:
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a compression module supporting a plurality of different encoding formats, the compression module including a plurality of encoding modules, each encoding module capable of performing data encoding according to a different standardized encoding format; a control module for selecting from the plurality of encoding formats, an encoding format to be used with a given set of data supplied to the compression module; means for selecting the quality level at which the at least one image represented by said image data is to be encoded using the selected encoding format based on the received information, wherein the quality level is selected from a plurality of supported encoding quality levels including at least a first quality level which is a lossless or near loss-less quality level;
a second quality level which is an intermediate quality level which is lower than said first quality level; and
a third quality level which is lower than said intermediate quality level, the third quality level being a distribution quality level, the distribution quality level being the level of image quality to be used for distribution of the image to a plurality of end viewers; anda data storage device coupled to the compression module for storing encoded data generated by said compression module.
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23. A system for processing and storing at least one of audio and video data, the system comprising:
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a compression module supporting a plurality of different encoding formats, the compression module including a plurality of encoding modules, each encoding module capable of performing data encoding according to a different standardized encoding format; a control module for selecting from the plurality of encoding formats, an encoding format to be used with a given set of data supplied to the compression module; an analysis module capable of performing an indexing operation on encoded data and generating index information therefrom; and a wrapper module coupled to said compression module, the storage device and the analysis module, the wrapper module supplying encoded data generated by said compression module to said analysis module and incorporating index information received from said analysis module into a file that includes the encoded data supplied to said analysis module; a data storage device coupled to the wrapper module for storing the file that includes the encoded data generated by said compression module; a data retrieval module for retrieving encoded data stored in the data storage device; and a transcoder module for converting encoded data retrieved from the data storage device from a format in which the data was stored to a different data format. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. A method of operating a system to process image data representing an image, the method comprising:
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receiving image source information indicating at least one of a type of storage media previously used to store the image data and, a storage format in which the image data was stored; automatically selecting a first encoding format from a plurality of supported encoding formats as a function of said received information; operating the system to encode said image data according to the first encoding format to thereby generate first encoded image data representing said image; storing the first encoded image data using a digital data storage device; retrieving the first encoded image data from the digital data storage device; converting the first encoded image data from the first encoding format to a second encoding format to produce second encoded image data, the second encoded format being different from the first encoding format; and outputting the second encoded image data; and converting the first encoded image data from the first encoding format to a third encoding format to produce third encoded image data, the third encoded format being different from the first and second encoding formats; and outputting the third encoded image data. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35)
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Specification