Multimedia filesystem having unified representation of content on diverse multimedia devices

• US 8,566,503 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2007
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: QNX Software Systems Limited (Canada) (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Dodge, Dan, van der Veen, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): ALGIBHAH, HAMZA N
• Application Number:
  US11/717,601
• Publication Number:
  US 20080052323A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,415 Days
• Field of Search: 709/246
• US Class Current: 711/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/639 using playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/686 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title or artist information, time, location or usage information, user ratings

Abstract

A multimedia system comprising at least two multimedia devices having differing filesystems and/or no filesystem(s), one or more applications, and a media filesystem adapted to communicate with the at least two multimedia devices and the one or more applications is disclosed. The one or more applications are adapted to issue filesystem commands and/or receive filesystem responses in a common filesystem representation with respect to files of the at least two multimedia devices. The media filesystem may accept the filesystem commands from the one or more applications and may provide responses to filesystem commands to the one or more applications using the common filesystem representation.

Claims

1. A multimedia system comprising:

at least two multimedia devices, where a first one of the at least two multimedia devices has a filesystem, where a second one of the at least two multimedia devices has no filesystem, and where each of the multimedia devices is accessed via a corresponding one of a plurality of multimedia device drivers; and

a memory, the memory comprising;

the multimedia device drivers;

one or more applications adapted to issue filesystem commands and/or receive filesystem responses using a common filesystem representation with respect to files of the plurality of multimedia devices; and

a media filesystem hierarchically disposed between the one or more applications and the multimedia device drivers, the media filesystem adapted to accept the filesystem commands from the one or more applications and provide the filesystem responses to the one or more applications using the common filesystem representation, where the media filesystem is further adapted to communicate with the at least two multimedia devices via the multimedia device drivers, and where each of the multimedia device drivers provides a filesystem view of a corresponding one of the multimedia devices to the media filesystem, and where one of the multimedia device drivers, which corresponds to the second one of the at least two multimedia devices that has no filesystem, provides the filesystem view of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to the media filesystem.

2. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the common filesystem representation comprises POSIX commands and responses.

3. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the common filesystem representation comprises UNIX commands and responses.

4. The multimedia system of claim 1, where at least one of the one or more applications comprises a human machine interface module.

5. The multimedia system of claim 1, where at least one of the one or more applications comprises a multimedia engine module.

6. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the media filesystem is further adapted to facilitate multimedia device discovery and synchronization.

7. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the media filesystem is further adapted to handle filesystem semantics.

8. The multimedia system of claim 7, where the filesystem semantics comprise semantics selected from the group consisting of pathname resolution, file access, directory access, symbolic linking, file access permissions, and block caching.

9. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the media filesystem mounts the at least two multimedia devices at a named directory corresponding to the device.

10. The multimedia system of claim 9, where the media filesystem designates the named directory for each device as /fs/dev_id, where dev_id indicates a type of device with a suffix representing an instance of the device.

11. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the media filesystem uses menu item selections of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to generate a filesystem structure for the second one of the at least two multimedia devices.

12. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize file content information associated with the at least two multimedia devices.

13. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize playlist tables associated with the at least two multimedia devices.

14. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize mediastores of the multimedia system.

15. The multimedia system of claim 1, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize slots for the at least two multimedia devices.

16. The multimedia system of claim 15, where the second one of the at least two multimedia devices, which does not include a filesystem, is accessed via TCP/IP by the one of the at least two multimedia device drivers that provides the filesystem view of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices.

17. A multimedia system comprising:

at least two multimedia devices having differing filesystems and/or no filesystem(s); and

a memory, the memory comprising;

one or more applications adapted to issue filesystem commands and receive filesystem responses with respect to files of the at least two multimedia devices, where the filesystem commands and the filesystem responses are sent to and received by the one or more applications using a common filesystem representation;

a unified filesystem module adapted to accept the filesystem commands from the one or more applications and to provide the files system responses to the one or more applications using the common filesystem representation; and

at least two multimedia device drivers, where the unified filesystem module is logically between the at least two multimedia device drivers and the one or more applications, where each of the at least two multimedia device drivers provides a filesystem view of a corresponding one of the at least two multimedia devices to the unified filesystem module, where a first one of the at least two multimedia devices has a filesystem, where a second one of the at least two multimedia devices does not include a filesystem, and where one of the at least two multimedia device drivers that corresponds to the second one of the at least two multimedia devices provides the filesystem view of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to the unified filesystem module.

18. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the common filesystem representation comprises POSIX commands and responses.

19. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the common filesystem representation comprises UNIX commands and responses.

20. The multimedia system of claim 17, where at least one of the one or more applications comprises a human machine interface module.

21. The multimedia system of claim 17, where at least one of the one or more applications comprises a multimedia engine module.

22. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the unified filesystem module is further adapted to handle filesystem semantics.

23. The multimedia system of claim 22, where the filesystem semantics comprise semantics selected from the group consisting of pathname resolution, file access, directory access, symbolic linking, file access permissions, and block caching.

24. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the unified filesystem module mounts the at least two multimedia devices at a named directory corresponding to the device.

25. The multimedia system of claim 24, where the unified filesystem module designates the named directory for each device as /fs/dev_id, where dev_id indicates a type of device with a suffix representing an instance number of the device.

26. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the unified filesystem module uses menu item selections of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to generate a filesystem structure for the second one of the at least two multimedia devices.

27. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize file content information associated with the at least two multimedia devices.

28. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize playlist tables associated with the at least two multimedia devices.

29. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize mediastores of the multimedia system.

30. The multimedia system of claim 17, where the multimedia system further comprises a database arranged to organize slots for the at least two multimedia devices.

31. A non-transitory computer readable media comprising instructions executable with a processor, the instructions comprising:

at least two device drivers adapted to communicate with at least two multimedia devices;

at least two multimedia applications hierarchically disposed above the device drivers; and

a filesystem abstraction layer disposed between the at least two device drivers and the at least two multimedia applications, where the filesystem abstraction layer provides a common filesystem interface to the at least two multimedia applications, and where each of the at least two device drivers provides a filesystem view of a corresponding one of the at least two multimedia devices to the filesystem abstraction layer, where a first one of the at least two multimedia devices has a filesystem, where a second one of the at least two multimedia devices has no filesystem, and where the multimedia device driver corresponding to the second one of the at least two multimedia devices provides the filesystem view of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to the filesystem abstraction layer.

32. The computer readable media of claim 31, where the common filesystem interface comprises UNIX commands and responses.

33. The computer readable media of claim 31, where at least one of the at least two multimedia applications comprises a human machine interface module.

34. The computer readable media of claim 31, where at least one of the at least two of multimedia applications comprises a multimedia engine module.

35. The computer readable media of claim 31, where the filesystem abstraction layer mounts the at least two multimedia devices at a named directory corresponding to the respective device.

36. The computer readable media of claim 35, where the filesystem abstraction layer designates the named directory for each of respective device as /fs/dev_id, where dev_id indicates a device type with a suffix representing an instance number for the respective device.

37. The computer readable media of claim 31, where the filesystem abstraction layer uses menu item selections of the second one of the at least two multimedia devices to generate a filesystem structure for the second one of the at least two multimedia devices.