Synchronization of media resources in a media archive

• US 8,438,131 B2
• Filed: 05/06/2010
• Issued: 05/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Altus365 Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Altus365 Incorporated
• Inventors: Prorock, Michael F., Prorock, Thomas J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lewis, Cheryl
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hoffler, Raheem
• Application Number:
  US12/775,064
• Publication Number:
  US 20110113011A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,097 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/634
• 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 media archive comprising a plurality of media resources associated with events that occurred during a time interval are processed to synchronize the media resources. Sequences of patterns are identified in each media resource of the media archive. Elements of the sequences associated with different media resources are correlated such that a set of correlated elements is associated with the same event that occurred in the given time interval. The synchronization information of the processed media resources is represented in a flexible and extensible data format. The synchronization information is used for optimized synchronous search capability, for enhanced synchronous playback of the archive resources, and for unified access to, and modification of, the archive resources.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of processing data to synchronize a plurality of media resources, the method comprising:

receiving a first media resource and a second media resource associated with events that occurred during a time interval, the first media resource representing content in a first media format and the second media resource representing content in a second media format;

identifying a first sequence in the first media resource and a second sequence in the second media resource, each sequence comprising one or more of;

a pattern comprising a repeating value, and

a pattern comprising incrementing values, wherein each incrementing value occurs within a threshold distance of a corresponding repeating value;

correlating elements of the first sequence with elements of the second sequence, wherein each pair of correlated elements is associated with an event that occurred in the time interval; and

storing correlation information associated with the first sequence and the second sequence.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the regularly incrementing pattern occurs within proximity of a regularly repeating pattern, wherein a sequence of pattern is within proximity of another sequence if corresponding elements of the sequence are within a threshold distance of each other.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein a sequence comprises non-regular incrementing values that occur at non-regular intervals.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein the sequence of non-regular incrementing values occurs within proximity of a sequence of regularly incrementing values, wherein a first sequence is within proximity of a second sequence if elements of the first sequence are within a threshold distance of corresponding elements of the second sequence.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein the non-regular incrementing values are timing values.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

validating elements of the sequence of non-regular incrementing values by verifying that each non-regular incrementing value occurs within the time interval in which the events occurred.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein storing correlation information associated with a sequence comprises storing locations of the elements of the sequence within each media resource.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the correlation information is used for presentation of a first portion of the first media resource along with a second portion of the second media resource, wherein the first and the second portions are associated with a same event.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein the second portion is synchronized with the first portion and the presentation of the first portion of the first media resource along with the second portion of the second media resource comprises simultaneous playback of the first portion with the second portion.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the events that occurred during a time interval comprise at least one of a presentation, a screen sharing session, an online collaboration session, and a recorded media event.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the events that occurred during a time interval comprise a slide presentation and a sequence corresponds to slide flips in the presentation.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

validating elements of the sequence by verifying that values corresponding to the elements are within a range of the total number of slides of the presentation.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of media resources are obtained from a media archive.

14. A computer implemented method of presenting data in a media archive comprising a plurality of media resources, the method comprising:

receiving a request for presenting information available in a media archive associated with events that occurred during a time interval, wherein the media archive comprises a first media resource and a second media resource;

identifying a first portion of the first resource for presentation based on a criteria available in the request;

identifying a second portion of the second resource for presentation, wherein the second portion and the first portion are correlated with each other based on a first sequence in the first media resource and a second sequence in the second media resource, each sequence comprising one or more of;

a pattern comprising a repeating value, and

a pattern comprising incrementing values, wherein each incrementing value occurs within a threshold distance of a corresponding repeating value; and

presenting the first portion along with the second portion.

15. A computer implemented method of claim 14, wherein the request comprises search terms to be identified in media resources of the media archive and the first portion comprises portion of the first media resource including at least a search term.

16. A computer implemented method of claim 14, wherein the request comprises information identifying an event that occurred during the time interval and the first portion comprises portion of the first resource associated with the event and the second portion comprises portion of the second resource associated with the event.

17. A computer implemented method of claim 14, wherein the request comprises search terms to restricted to portions of media resources of the media archive that correspond to one or more events that occurred during the time interval.

18. A computer implemented system for processing data to synchronize a plurality of media resources, the system comprising:

a computer processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium storing computer program modules configured to execute on the computer processor, the computer program modules comprising;

a universal media convertor module configured to;

receive a first media resource and a second media resource associated with events that occurred during a time interval, the first media resource representing content in a first media format and the second media resource storing content in a second media format;

identify a first sequence in the first media resource and a second sequence in the second media resource, each sequence comprising one or more of;

a pattern comprising a repeating value, and

a pattern comprising incrementing values, wherein each incrementing value occurs within a threshold distance of a corresponding repeating value;

correlate elements of the first sequence with elements of the second sequence, wherein the pair of correlated elements is associated with an event that occurred in the time interval; and

store correlation information associated with the first sequence and the second sequence.

19. A computer program product having a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable code for processing data in a plurality of media resources to synchronize the media resources, the code comprising:

a universal media convertor module configured to;

receive a first media resource and a second media resource associated with events that occurred during a time interval, the first media resource representing content in a first media format and the second media resource storing content in a second media format;

identify a first sequence in the first media resource and a second sequence in the second media resource, each sequence comprising one or more of;

a pattern comprising a repeating value, and

a pattern comprising incrementing values, wherein each incrementing value occurs within a threshold distance of a corresponding repeating value;

correlate elements of the first sequence with elements of the second sequence, wherein each pair of correlated elements is associated with an event that occurred in the time interval; and

store correlation information associated with the first sequence and the second sequence.

20. A computer implemented method of processing data to synchronize a plurality of media resources, the method comprising:

receiving a first media resource and a second media resource associated with events that occurred during a time interval, the first media resource representing content in a first media format and the second media resource representing content in a second media format;

identifying a first sequence in the first media resource comprising a pattern of regularly occurring values;

identifying a second sequence in the second media resource comprising a pattern of incrementing values occurring at non-regular intervals, the incrementing values corresponding to timing values;

synchronizing the first media resource with the second media resource based on elements of the first sequence and elements of the second sequence, the synchronizing comprising;

estimating timing values corresponding to elements of the first sequence by interpolating timing values from the second sequence; and

storing synchronization information correlating the first media resource and the second media resource.

21. The computer implemented method of claim 20, further comprising:

validating elements of the non-regular incrementing pattern by verifying that values corresponding to the elements occur within the time interval in which the events occurred.

22. The computer implemented method of claim 20, wherein the first sequence comprises a pattern of regularly occurring identical values.

23. The computer implemented method of claim 20, wherein the first sequence comprises a pattern of regularly occurring incrementing values.