Media-Editing Application with a Free-Form Space for Organizing or Compositing Media Clips

• US 20120017152A1
• Filed: 07/15/2010
• Published: 01/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Matsuda, Ken, Cerf, Dave
• Granted Patent: US 8,819,557 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/723
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D

Abstract

For a media-editing application, some embodiments of the invention provide a novel two-dimensional free-form space that allows a user to both visually organize media clips and composite media clips in order to create composite presentations. To visually organize media clips in the space, some embodiments allow the user to add, remove, visually arrange and rearrange, and minimize the media clips. Also, the media clips in the space can be placed at any location within the entire space when the user is visually organizing the media clips. To composite media clips in the free-form space, some embodiments also allow the user to create sequences of media clips, reorder the media clips within sequences, stack sequences, and add or remove media clips from sequences. In some embodiments, the media clips or created sequences can be placed at any location within the entire space when the user is organizing and compositing media clips.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a media-editing application for creating media presentations, said application comprising a graphical user interface (GUI), said GUI comprising:

a single contiguous display area for organizing media clips and compositing media clips to create media presentations; and

a viewing area for playing back a media clip.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein said GUI further comprises an organizing area for further organizing the media clips.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein said GUI further comprises a composite display area for further compositing media clips.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein each media clip has a first graphical representation in the contiguous display area and has a second graphical representation, different than the first graphical representation, in the composite display area.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1,

wherein each of a plurality of media clips is a video clip,

wherein a video clip has a thumbnail representation in the contiguous display area,

wherein the video clip'"'"'s content is playable in the video clip'"'"'s thumbnail.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the GUI further comprises a viewing area for playing content of a video clip.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6, wherein the viewing area is further for concurrently playing the content of the video clip as the content is also being played back in the video clip'"'"'s thumbnail.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein media clips in the display area are attachable to each other in order to form a concatenated sequence of a plurality of media clips.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein within the display area, each media clip has a graphical representation a portion of which is defined to attract and attach to portions of the graphical representations of other media clips.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1,

wherein within the display area, each media clip has a graphical representation,

wherein the GUI further comprises a set of tools for marking with a visual marker a portion of a first media clip while the first media clip is being played back,

wherein the marked portion of the first media clip represents a portion of media content associated with the first media clip.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the GUI specifies the visual marker as a selectable UI item that allows the marked portion of the first media clip to be extracted from the first media clip to create a second media clip, wherein the second media clip represents media content that is the portion of the media content associated with the first media clip.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein said display area does not include any smaller display areas within it.

13. A method of defining a media-editing application for creating media presentations, said application comprising a graphical user interface (GUI), the method comprising:

in the GUI,

defining a trackless first display area for organizing media clips before compositing and compositing media clips, said trackless display area allowing a first media clip to at least partially overlap a second media clip when the first media clip is moved over the second media clip; and

defining a viewing area for playing back a media clip.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

in the GUI, defining a second display area for organizing media clips for compositing,

defining a set of operations for moving media clips between the first and second display areas.

15. The method of claim 13,

wherein each of a plurality of media clips represents a piece of video content,

wherein each video content piece includes a plurality of frames,

wherein each media clip includes a graphical display that displays a thumbnail image of one of the frames of the media clip'"'"'s associated video content,

the method further comprising defining a set of tools for allowing a user to change the graphical display of a media clip from a thumbnail image of one frame of the media clip'"'"'s associated video content to another thumbnail image of another frame of the media clip'"'"'s associated video content.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising defining in the GUI a tracked, composite display area for further compositing media clips, wherein each media clip has a first graphical representation in the trackless display area and has a second graphical representation, different than the first graphical representation, in the tracked, composite display area.

17. The method of claim 13 further comprising defining a graphical representation for each media clip in the trackless display area to include a set of locations that attract and attach to a set of locations of the graphical representations of other media clips.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein within the display area, each media clip has a graphical representation, wherein the method further comprises:

defining a set of tools for marking with a selectable visual marker a portion of a first media clip while the first media clip is being played back, wherein the marked portion of the first media clip represents a portion of media content associated with the first media clip;

defining a set of operations for allowing the marked portion of the first media clip to be extracted from the first media clip to create a second media clip, wherein the second media clip has media content that is the portion of the media content associated with the first media clip.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a media-editing application for creating media presentations, said application comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying a trackless display area for compositing media clips to form a composite media presentation; and

displaying a viewing area for playing back the composite media presentation.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for displaying a composite display area for further compositing the media clips.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein each media clip has a first graphical representation in the trackless display area and has a second graphical representation, different than the first graphical representation, in the composite display area.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the application further comprises a set of instructions for displaying each media clip in the trackless display area as a graphical representation that has a set of locations that attract and attach to a set of locations of the graphical representations of other media clips.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein within the display area, each media clip has a graphical representation, wherein the application further comprises sets of instructions for:

while a first media clip is being played back, receiving instructions to mark with a selectable visual marker a portion of the first media clip, wherein the marked portion of the first media clip represents a portion of media content associated with the first media clip;

receiving selection and movement of the visual marker of the first media clip;

in response to the selection and movement of the visual marker, extracting the marked portion from the first media clip to create a second media clip, wherein the second media clip represents media content that is the portion of the media content associated with the first media clip.

24. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19,

wherein the display area allows more than one set of media clips to be concatenated to form more than one sequence of the media clips that are concurrently displayed in the display area;

wherein the media clips within each sequence have a temporal relationship to one another, but two different sequences that do not abut in the display area do not have a temporal relationship with one another.