Capturing and sharing media content

• US 8,799,969 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2011
• Issued: 08/05/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sling Media LLC (Dish Network Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sling Media Incorporated (Dish Network Corporation)
• Inventors: Krikorian, Jason Gary, Krikorian, Blake Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): Lonsberry, Hunter B
• Application Number:
  US13/107,341
• Publication Number:
  US 20110219413A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,180 Days
• Field of Search: 725/89, 725 93- 95, 725/109, 725115-116
• US Class Current: 725/93
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/80 characterised by transmission among terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/107 between spatial and temporal predictive coding, e.g. picture refresh
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/115 Selection of the code volume for a coding unit prior to coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/137 Motion inside a coding unit, e.g. average field, frame or block difference
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/14 Coding unit complexity, e.g. amount of activity or edge presence estimation H04N19/146 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 : the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/182 : the unit being a pixel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/188 : the unit being a video data packet, e.g. a network abstraction layer [NAL] unit
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 : using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 : in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/80 : Details of filtering operations specially adapted for video compression, e.g. for pixel interpolation H04N19/635, H04N19/86 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 : using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23406 : involving management of server-side video buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 : involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 : Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 : being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 : Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 : by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 : Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 : Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 : Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 : Accessing a communication channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4384 : involving operations to reduce the access time, e.g. fast-tuning for reducing channel switching latency
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 : involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 : using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 : Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 : Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

A media device allows users to watch and capture portions from a media stream. Users may then share the captured media content with other users. In one embodiment, the media device receives a media stream, plays the media stream, and caches a portion of the media stream as it is being played. A user can define a media clip by selecting its boundaries in the cached portion of the media stream. The media device creates the media clip based on the user'"'"'s input and enables the user to transmit the media clip to another system, such as a community website for sharing it with other users.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for sharing media content from a first device over a digital network, the method comprising:

receiving a media stream at the first device from a remotely-located media source;

receiving information that describes the content of the media stream at the first device;

receiving user commands that define a portion of the received media stream bounded by a start point and an end point, wherein the start point and the end point of the defined portion are each defined by the user;

responsive to receiving the user commands, capturing the defined portion of the received media stream that is bounded by the user defined start point and the user defined end point to thereby create a clip of the defined portion of the media stream;

automatically associating at least some of the information that describes the media stream with the clip that was captured from the media stream; and

transmitting the clip and the associated information that describes the media stream to a second device via the digital network to thereby allow the second device to identify the media stream from which the clip was captured.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the information that describes the content of the media stream comprises metadata associated with the received media stream that defines a limited duration for clips created from particular programming contained within the received media stream.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the information that describes the content of the media stream is received with the media stream from the remote source.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising preventing the clip from exceeding the limited duration defined in the metadata for the particular programming contained within the media stream.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the information that describes the media stream allows the first device to limit a duration of the clip based upon the content of the media stream.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the information that describes the media stream associated with the clip allows the second device to limit distribution of the clip based upon access rights associated with the media stream from which the clip was captured.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first device restricts the capturing of the defined portion based upon the information that describes the media stream.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the information that describes the media stream is received at least in part from an automatic process for obtaining information about the media stream.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the information that describes the media stream is received at least in part by automatically extracting metadata embedded in the media stream.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the information that describes the media stream is automatically obtained at least in part from electronic programming guide data received from the remotely-located media source.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting of the clip comprises uploading the clip to a media content sharing website that is configured to limit distribution of the clip based upon the associated information about the media stream from which the clip was captured.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising caching at least a portion of the received media stream at the first device and playing the media stream from the cached portion of the media stream, and wherein the captured portion of the media stream used to create the clip is obtained from the same cached portion of the media stream used to play the media stream.

13. A client device for sharing media content client device being configured for performing a method comprising:

receiving a media stream at the client device from a remotely-located media source;

receiving information that describes the content of the media stream at the client device;

receiving user commands at the client device that define a portion of the received media stream, wherein the portion of the media stream is bounded by a start point and an end point that are each defined by the user;

responsive to receiving the user commands, capturing the defined portion of the received media stream that is bounded by the start point and the end point defined by the user to thereby create a clip of the defined portion of the received media stream;

automatically associating at least some of the information that describes the media stream with the clip that was captured from the media stream; and

transmitting the clip of the defined portion of the received media stream and the associated information to a second device via the digital network to thereby allow the second device to identify the media stream from which the clip was captured.

14. The client device of claim 13 wherein the media stream is a digital media stream transmitted over the digital network to the client device from a placeshifting device that is configured to receive a television signal from a source, to convert the television signal to the media stream, and to transmit the media stream on the digital network.

15. The client device of claim 14 wherein the information that describes the content of the media stream is electronic program guide information about the content of the television signal, and wherein the electronic program guide information is received at the client device from a network service apart from the placeshifting device that transmits the digital media stream to the client device.

16. A media device comprising:

an interface to a digital network;

a cache configured to temporarily store at least a portion of a media stream as the media stream is received from a remotely-located media source; and

a processor configured to receive information that describes the content of the media stream, to output the cached portion of the media stream for presentation on a display as the media stream is received, to receive user commands that define a start point and an end point of a user-defined portion of the received media stream while the cached portion of the media stream is being output for presentation, to create a clip of the defined portion of the media stream by copying data from the cached portion of the media stream, to automatically associate at least some of the information that describes the content of the media stream with the created clip, and to transmit the created clip and the associated information to a second device via the digital network to thereby allow the second device to identify the media stream from which the clip was created.

17. The media device of claim 16 wherein the media stream is received via the interface to the digital network from a remotely-located placeshifting device.

18. The media device of claim 17 wherein the information that describes the content of the media stream is electronic program guide information about the content of the television signal, and wherein the electronic program guide information is received at the client device from a network service apart from the remotely-located placeshifting device that transmits the digital media stream to the client device.

19. The media device of claim 16 wherein the processor is further configured to restrict a length of the defined portion based upon the information that describes the media stream.