Systems and methods for converting interactive multimedia content authored for distribution via a physical medium for electronic distribution

• US 8,965,180 B2
• Filed: 07/13/2011
• Issued: 02/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rovi Technologies Corporation (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rovi Guides, Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Knight, Anthony David, Lewis, Ian Michael, Devitt, Andrew Maurice
• Primary Examiner(s): CHIO, TAT CHI
• Application Number:
  US13/182,376
• Publication Number:
  US 20120014674A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,322 Days
• Field of Search: 386/278, 386/279, 386/280, 386/281, 386/282, 386/283, 386/284, 386/285, 386/290
• US Class Current: 386/282
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/2562 DVDs [digital versatile discs]; Digital video discs; MMCDs; HDCDs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/329 on a disc [VTOC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234354 by altering signal-to-noise ratio parameters, e.g. requantization
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

Systems and methods for converting interactive multimedia content authored for distribution via a physical medium for electronic distribution are disclosed. One embodiment of the invention includes building an object model of interactive multimedia content authored for distribution via a physical medium using a content authoring system, automatically authoring a user interface based upon the object model using the content authoring system, and packing the transcoded multimedia content into at least one container file.

Claims

1. A method of converting interactive multimedia content distributed via a physical medium for electronic distribution, comprising:

receiving, using a content authoring system, the interactive multimedia content distributed via the physical medium, wherein the interactive multimedia content comprises a plurality of files formatted in accordance with a DVD-Video specification including at least one IFO file containing tables describing objects within the interactive multimedia content and at least one VOB file containing multimedia content and navigation information;

parsing the at least one IFO file and the at least one VOB file to build an object model of the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system;

converting the interactive multimedia content into an electronic distribution format based on the object model using the content authoring system;

automatically authoring a user interface using the content authoring system, wherein the user interface comprises at least one Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page that enables a rendering of the interactive multimedia content via a rendering engine of a web browser application using the object model as a basis of a document object model (DOM) of the at least one HTML page; and

packing the multimedia content into at least one container file using the content authoring system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the at least one IFO file and the at least one VOB file to build an object model for the interactive multimedia content comprises identifying program chains within the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein identifying program chains within the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system further comprises identifying cells within at least one VOB file associated with a program chain.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the at least one IFO file and the at least one VOB file to build an object model of the interactive multimedia content comprises identifying the navigation information within the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically authoring further comprises generating at least one JavaScript file associated with the at least one HTML5 page using the object model.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein:

parsing the at least one IFO file and the at least one VOB file to build an object model of the interactive multimedia content comprises identifying a plurality of program chains within the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system; and

generating a plurality of HTML5 pages, wherein each HTML5 page in the plurality of HTML pages corresponds to a respective program chain in the plurality of program chains.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein:

parsing the at least one IFO file and the at least one VOB file to build an object model of the interactive multimedia content comprises identifying navigation information within the interactive multimedia content using the content authoring system; and

the navigation information is used to generate JavaScript code within the JavaScript file.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising transcoding at least a portion of the multimedia content using the content authoring system.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein transcoding at least a portion of the multimedia content using the content authoring system comprises transcoding a least a portion of video content to reduce the size of the video content.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein transcoding at least a portion of the multimedia content using the content authoring system comprises transcoding a least a portion of video content into a plurality of streams having different bitrates.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein transcoding at least a portion of the multimedia content using the content authoring system comprises converting subtitles to text.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein packing the multimedia content into at least one container file comprises multiplexing at least one video stream and at least one audio stream into at least one container file.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transcoding a least a portion of video content into a plurality of streams having different bitrates; and

wherein packing the multimedia content into at least one container file comprises packing each video stream into at least one separate container file.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein packing the multimedia content into at least one container file comprises packing the authored user interface and the multimedia content into at least one container file.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein packing the multimedia content into at least one container file comprises packing the authored user interface and the multimedia content into a single container file.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising generating a unique identifier for the at least one container file.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising electronically distributing at least a portion of the authored user interface and the at least one container file via a network connection.

18. A method for converting interactive multimedia content distributed via a physical medium into an electronic distribution format, the method comprising:

receiving, using control circuitry, the interactive multimedia content distributed via the physical medium, wherein the interactive multimedia content comprises multimedia content and an interactive feature related to the multimedia content;

extracting, using the control circuitry, the interactive feature from the interactive multimedia content;

constructing, using the control circuitry, an object corresponding to the extracted interactive feature;

creating, using the control circuitry, an object model of the interactive multimedia content, wherein the object model comprises the object corresponding to the extracted interactive feature; and

converting, using the control circuitry, the interactive multimedia content into the electronic distribution format based on the object model, wherein the electronic distribution format comprises a portion of the multimedia content associated with the extracted interactive feature.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the interactive feature is a first interactive feature and the object is a first object, the method further comprising:

extracting a second interactive feature from the interactive multimedia content;

constructing a second object corresponding to the extracted second interactive feature; and

connecting the first and second objects for inclusion in the object model.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the portion of the multimedia content is a first portion of the multimedia content, the second interactive feature is associated with a second portion of the multimedia content, and wherein the connecting is based on a relationship between the first and second portions of the multimedia content.

21. A system for converting interactive multimedia content distributed via a physical medium into an electronic distribution format, the system comprising:

control circuitry configured to;

receive the interactive multimedia content distributed via the physical medium, wherein the interactive multimedia content comprises multimedia content and an interactive feature related to the multimedia content;

extract the interactive feature from the interactive multimedia content;

construct an object corresponding to the extracted interactive feature;

create an object model of the interactive multimedia content, wherein the object model comprises the object corresponding to the extracted interactive feature; and

convert the interactive multimedia content into the electronic distribution format based on the object model, wherein the electronic distribution format comprises a portion of the multimedia content associated with the extracted interactive feature.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the interactive feature is a first interactive feature and the object is a first object, and wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

extract a second interactive feature from the interactive multimedia content;

construct a second object corresponding to the extracted second interactive feature; and

connect the first and second objects for inclusion in the object model.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the portion of the multimedia content is a first portion of the multimedia content, the second interactive feature is associated with a second portion of the multimedia content, and wherein the control circuitry is configured to connect the first and second objects based on a relationship between the first and second portions of the multimedia content.