Multimedia filesystem having unified representation of content on diverse multimedia devices

• US 20080052323A1
• Filed: 03/13/2007
• Published: 02/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: 8758271 Canada Inc. (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Dodge, Dan, van der Veen, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,503 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/201
• 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 having differing filesystems and/or no filesystem(s);

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 adapted to communicate with the at least two multimedia devices and the one or more applications, where the media filesystem accepts the filesystem commands from the one or more applications and provides responses to filesystem commands to the one or more applications using the common filesystem representation.

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.

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 at least one multimedia device of the at least two multimedia devices does not include a filesystem that is directly accessible to the media filesystem.

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

13. 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.

14. 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.

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

16. 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.

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

17. A multimedia system comprising:

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

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 responses are sent to and received by the one or more applications using a common filesystem representation;

a unified filesystem module adapted to communicate with the one or more applications using the common filesystem representation; and

at least two multimedia device drivers in communication with the at least two multimedia devices and responsive to filesystem commands received from 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 at least one multimedia device of the at least two multimedia devices does not include a filesystem that is directly accessible to the unified filesystem module.

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

28. 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.

29. 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.

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

31. 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.

32. A multimedia system comprising:

at least two device drivers adapted to communicate with at least two multimedia devices having different filesystems and/or no filesystem(s);

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

a filesystem abstraction layer in communication with the at least two device drivers and the at least two multimedia applications, where the filesystem abstraction layer is adapted to provide a common filesystem interface with the at least two multimedia applications.

33. The multimedia system of claim 32, where the common filesystem interface comprises POSIX commands and responses.

34. The multimedia system of claim 32, where the common filesystem interface comprises UNIX commands and responses.

35. The multimedia system of claim 32, where at least one of the at least two multimedia applications comprises a human machine interface module.

36. The multimedia system of claim 32, where at least one of the at least two of multimedia applications comprises a multimedia engine module.

37. The multimedia system of claim 32, where the filesystem abstraction layer mounts the at least two multimedia devices at a named directory corresponding to the respective device.

38. The multimedia system of claim 37, 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.

39. The multimedia system of claim 32, where at least one multimedia device of the at least two multimedia devices does not include a filesystem that is directly accessible to the filesystem abstraction layer.

40. The multimedia system of claim 39, where the filesystem abstraction layer uses menu item selections of the at least one multimedia device to generate a filesystem structure for the at least one multimedia device.