METHOD AND PROCESS FOR TEXT-BASED ASSISTIVE PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS FOR TELEVISION

• US 20100141834A1
• Filed: 12/08/2008
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Home Box Office Incorporated (Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Home Box Office Incorporated (Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.)
• Inventors: CUTTNER, Craig Davis
• Granted Patent: US 8,497,939 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/468
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 21/001 Teaching or communicating with blind persons G09B21/02 - G09B21/06 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0885 for the transmission of subtitles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8211 the additional signal being a sound signal H04N9/835 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8233 the additional signal being a character code signal

Abstract

In a system and method of producing time-synchronous textual descriptions of stage directions in live or pre-recorded productions to provide assistive program descriptions to visually-impaired consumers, a processor may parse stage directions from a production script and synchronize the parsed stage directions with closed captioning streams. The method may include viewing a live or pre-recorded production, creating textual descriptions of the stage directions using a stenography system, and outputting the textual descriptions to a separate output stream than that of dialogue descriptions. In addition, the method may include creating audio descriptions of the stage directions, and converting the audio descriptions to textual descriptions of the stage directions using a voice-recognition system. Further, the method may include distributing the synchronized stage directions, and receiving and decoding the synchronized stage directions using a text-based system.

Claims

1. A method of generating time-synchronous stage directions, comprising the steps of:

creating, from a production script of a program, a time-sequential list of stage directions; and

providing the time-sequential list of stage directions for rendering in synchronization with a rendering of the program.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

creating, from the production script, a time-sequential list of dialogue streams;

matching the time-sequential list of dialogue streams to a list of closed-captioning streams, wherein dialogue time codes are associated with the closed-captioning streams;

assigning the dialogue time codes associated with the closed-captioning streams to the matched dialogue streams;

calculating stage direction time codes between consecutive dialogue time codes, on a basis of at least one of the consecutive dialogue time codes and a number of stage directions between consecutive dialogue streams; and

assigning the calculated stage direction time codes to the time-sequential list of stage directions, the synchronization being performed based on the assigned stage direction time codes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the matching step includes performing the matching via a loose-fitting matching algorithm.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the calculating step includes:

determining, for two consecutive dialogue time codes, a difference between the consecutive dialogue time codes;

dividing the difference by one plus a number N of stage directions between consecutive dialogue streams associated with the two consecutive dialogue time codes to calculate a stage direction time code interval;

multiplying the stage direction time code interval by a z^th stage direction between the consecutive dialogue streams to calculate a z^th stage direction time code interval; and

adding the z^th stage direction time code interval to an earlier time code of the consecutive dialogue time codes.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

distributing the time-synchronous stage directions as text streams by at least one of vertical blanking systems, Internet stream systems, and DVD authoring.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least one of vertical blanking and Internet stream systems includes at least one of a CEA-608 closed captioning system, a CEA-708 closed captioning system, a World-System Teletext (WST) system, a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system, and a timed-text system for multimedia (SMIL).

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the time-synchronous stage directions; and

decoding the time-synchronous stage directions using a text-based system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the text-based system includes at least one of a Braille device, a text-to-speech synthesizer, and a large-type on-screen display.

9. A method of providing descriptions of stage directions, comprising the steps of:

creating textual descriptions of the stage directions of a production script; and

transmitting the textual descriptions to a rendering system.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

viewing at least one of a live production and a pre-recorded production including dialogue and the stage directions;

wherein the textual descriptions of the stage directions are based on the viewing of the production.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

creating textual descriptions of the dialogue; and

transmitting the textual descriptions of the dialogue to the rendering system;

wherein one of;

the textual descriptions of the stage directions and the textual descriptions of the dialogue are transmitted to the rendering system via different transmission channels; and

a code is included with the textual descriptions of the stage directions, the rendering system distinguishing between the textual descriptions of the stage directions and the textual descriptions of the dialogue based on the code.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the textual descriptions are transmitted as text streams by at least one of vertical blanking systems, data packet systems, and DVD authoring.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one of vertical blanking and data packet systems includes at least one of a CEA-608 closed captioning system, a CEA-708 closed captioning system, a World-System Teletext (WST) system, a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system, and a timed-text system for multimedia (SMIL).

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the textual descriptions together with a closed-captioning text stream;

suppressing the textual descriptions from on-screen closed captioning displayed based on the closed-captioning text stream; and

rendering the textual descriptions.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the textual descriptions are rendered by at least one of a Braille device, a text-to-speech synthesizer, and a large-type on-screen display.

16. A method of providing textual descriptions of stage directions, comprising the steps of:

at least one of a) reading a production script, and b) viewing at least one of a live production and a pre-recorded production including dialogue and stage directions;

creating audio descriptions of the stage directions; and

converting the audio descriptions to textual descriptions of the stage directions using a voice-recognition system.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of:

distributing the textual descriptions as text streams by at least one of vertical blanking systems, data packet stream systems, and DVD authoring.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one of vertical blanking and data packet stream systems includes at least one of a CEA-608 closed captioning system, a CEA-708 closed captioning system, a World-System Teletext (WST) system, a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system, and a timed-text system for multimedia (SMIL).

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the textual descriptions of the stage directions; and

decoding the textual descriptions via a rendering system.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the rendering system includes at least one of a Braille device, a text-to-speech synthesizer, and a large-type on-screen display.

21. A method of using textual descriptions to provide assistive program descriptions to visually-impaired consumers, the method comprising the steps of:

transmitting a stream of textual descriptions of stage directions for at least one of a live production and a pre-recorded production to a rendering device for rendering the stream of textual descriptions of stage directions.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the textual descriptions are transmitted as text streams by at least one of vertical blanking systems, data packet systems, and DVD authoring.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the at least one of vertical blanking and data packet systems includes at least one of a CEA-608 closed captioning system, a CEA-708 closed captioning system, a World-System Teletext (WST) system, a Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system, and a timed-text system for multimedia (SMIL).

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the rendering device is at least one of a Braille device, a text-to-speech synthesizer, and a large-type on-screen display.

25. A method of using textual descriptions to provide assistive program descriptions to visually-impaired consumers, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving at a rendering device a stream of textual descriptions of stage directions for at least one of a live production and a pre-recorded production; and

the rendering device rendering the stream of textual descriptions of stage directions.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the rendering device is at least one of a Braille device, a text-to-speech synthesizer, and a large-type on-screen display.