METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ANNOUNCING AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTENT TO A USER OF A MOBILE RADIO TERMINAL

• US 20070260460A1
• Filed: 05/05/2006
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications USA Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Hyatt, Edward
• Application Number:
  US11/381,770
• Publication Number:
  US 20070260460A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/7243 with interactive means for internal management of messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72442 for playing music files

Abstract

An electronic equipment for playing audiovisual content to a user and announcing information associated with the audiovisual content. The electronic equipment may include an audiovisual data player for playing back audiovisual data; a synthesizer for converting text data associated with the audiovisual data into a representation of the text data for audible playback of the text to a user; and a controller that controls the synthesizer and the audiovisual data player to play back the text data in association with playback of the audiovisual data to announce the audiovisual data to the user.

Claims

5. An electronic equipment for playing audiovisual content to a user and announcing information associated with the audiovisual content, comprising:

an audiovisual data player for playing back audiovisual data;

a synthesizer for converting text data associated with the audiovisual data into a representation of the text data for audible playback of the text to a user; and

a controller that controls the synthesizer and the audiovisual data player to play back the text data in association with playback of the audiovisual data to announce the audiovisual data to the user.

1. A mobile radio terminal, comprising:

a radio circuit for enabling call completion between the mobile radio terminal and a called or calling device; and

a text-to-speech synthesizer for converting text data to a representation of the text data for audible playback of the text to a user.

2. The mobile radio terminal according to claim 1, wherein the converted text data is derived from a header associated with audiovisual data.

3. The mobile radio terminal according to claim 2, further comprising an audiovisual data player for playing the audiovisual data back to the user and wherein the converted text data is played back in association with playback of the audiovisual data to announce the audiovisual data to the user.

4. The mobile radio terminal according to claim 2, wherein the converted text data from the header is merged with filler audio to simulate a human announcer.

6. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein converted text data associated with the audiovisual data is merged with filler audio to simulate a human announcer.

7. The electronic equipment of claim 5, further comprising an audio mixer for combining an audio output of the audiovisual data player and an output of the synthesizer at respective volumes under the control of the controller.

8. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein the text data is audibly announced at a time selected from one of before playback of the audiovisual data, after playback of the audiovisual data or during the playback of the audiovisual data.

9. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein the text data is derived from a header of an audiovisual file containing the audiovisual data.

10. The electronic equipment of claim 9, further comprising a memory for storing the audiovisual file.

11. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein plural units of audiovisual data are played back and text data is played back for each audiovisual data unit playback, and the controller changes an announcement style of the text data playback from one audiovisual data playback to a following audiovisual data playback.

12. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein the controller controls the synthesizer to apply a persona to the conversion of the text data.

13. The electronic equipment of claim 12, wherein the persona corresponds to a genre of the audiovisual data.

14. The electronic equipment of claim 12, wherein the persona corresponds to a time of day.

15. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein the controller further controls the synthesizer to convert additional text data that is unrelated to the audiovisual data played back by the audiovisual data player so as to playback the additional text data to the user.

16. The electronic equipment of claim 15, wherein the additional text data is announced between playback of a first unit of audiovisual data and a second unit of audiovisual data.

17. The electronic equipment of claim 15, wherein the additional text data corresponds to a calendar event managed by a calendar function of the electronic equipment.

18. The electronic equipment of claim 15, wherein the additional text data corresponds to a time managed by a clock function of the electronic equipment.

19. The electronic equipment of claim 15, wherein the addition text data is obtained from a source external to the electronic equipment and corresponds to at least one of a news headline, a weather report, traffic information, a sports score or a stock price.

20. The electronic equipment of claim 19, wherein the additional text data is preformatted for playback by the electronic equipment by a service provider.

21. The electronic equipment of claim 19, wherein the additional text data is obtained by executing a search by an information retrieval function of the electronic equipment.

23. The electronic equipment of claim 5, further comprising a transceiver that receives the audiovisual data as a downstream for playback by the audiovisual data player.

24. The electronic equipment of claim 5, wherein the electronic equipment is a mobile radio terminal.

21-1. The electronic equipment of claim 15, wherein the additional text data is played back in response to receiving a voice command from the user.

25. A method of playing audiovisual content to a user of an electronic equipment and announcing information associated with the audiovisual content, comprising:

playing back audiovisual data to the user; and

converting text data associated with the audiovisual data into a representation of the text data and audibly playing back the representation to the user.