RETIMING MEDIA PRESENTATIONS

• US 20120210228A1
• Filed: 05/17/2011
• Published: 08/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Wang, Xiaohuan C., Agnoli, Giovanni, Chen, David N., Sundaram, Vijay, Meaney, Brian, Stern, Mike, Schneider, Paul T., Graves, Eric J., Ubillos, Randy
• Granted Patent: US 9,997,196 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/70 of video data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/74 Browsing; Visualisation therefor end-user interfaces for requesting or interacting with video content, e.g. video on demand interfaces or electronic program guides, H04N21/472
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/005 Reproducing at a different information rate from the information rate of recording for television signals H04N5/783
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/007 reproducing continuously a part of the information, i.e. repeating
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• 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

A novel method for retiming a portion of a media content (e.g., audio data, video data, audio and video data, etc.) in a media-editing application is provided. The media editing application includes a user interface for defining a range in order to select a portion of the media content. The media editing application performs retiming by applying a speed effect to the portion of the media content selected by the defined range. For a faster speed effect, the media editing application retimes the selected portion of the media content by sampling the media content at a faster rate. For a slower speed effect, the media editing application retimes the selected portion of the media content by sampling the content at a slower rate.

Claims

1. A method of defining a media editing application for creating multimedia presentations, the method comprising:

defining a range selector for selecting a portion of a media clip;

defining a user interface item for presenting a plurality of selectable preset retiming operations; and

defining a retiming engine for applying a selected preset retiming operation to the portion of the media clip selected by the range selector in order to change a playback timing of the selected portion of the media clip.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining a playback curve that specifies a relationship between the media clip and a playback timing of the media clip.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the retiming engine further adjusts the playback curve according to a spline interpolation.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the spline interpolation is based on Monotone Cubic Interpolation.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the spline interpolation is based on one or more keyframes associated with the playback curve, each keyframe associated with a position in the media clip that is determined by a previously performed retiming operation.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the spline interpolation maintains monotonicity of the playback curve between two keyframes.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the retiming engine adjusts the playback curve according to one of the plurality of preset retiming operations.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the playback curve is further associated with a keyframe that marks a particular position in the media clip, wherein adjusting the playback curve comprises defining the particular position of the key frame.

9. The method of claim 2 further comprising defining a frame interpolator for creating an interpolated video frame based on a source of the media clip and the playback curve.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a range of the selected portion of the media clip can be adjusted by a user input.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining a composite display area for displaying a set of graphical representations of a set of media clips that are parts of a composite presentation.

12. A computer readable medium storing a media editing application for creating multimedia presentations, the application comprising a graphical user interface (GUI), the GUI comprising:

a composite display area for displaying a set of graphical representations of a set of media clips that are parts of a composite presentation; and

a range selector for selecting a portion of a media clip;

a user interface item for presenting a plurality of selectable preset retiming operations; and

a retiming engine for applying a selected preset retiming operation to the portion of the media clip selected by the range selector in order to change a playback timing of the selected portion of the media clip.

13. The GUI of claim 12, wherein a graphical representation of a media clip comprises a speed indicator for indicating a speed for playing back the portion of the media clip.

14. The GUI of claim 13, wherein the speed indicator comprises a plurality of sections, each section of the speed indicator corresponds to a section of the media clip that plays at a different speed.

15. The GUI of claim 13, wherein the speed indicator is partitioned into a plurality of sections according to a retiming operation performed by the retiming engine.

16. The GUI of claim 12, wherein a graphical representation of a media clip comprises a plurality of sections that represents different portions of the media clip that play back at different speeds.

17. The GUI of claim 16, wherein the graphical representation of the media clip further comprises a plurality of thumbnail images that are sampled from the media clip at regular intervals of playback time.

18. The GUI of claim 16, wherein one section of the graphical representation of the media clip comprises a handle for adjusting the playback speed of the corresponding portion of the media clip.

19. The GUI of claim 18, wherein said adjusting of the playback speed of the corresponding portion of the media clip comprises using the handle to change the length of the section of the graphical representation of the media clip.

20. The GUI of claim 16, wherein one section of the graphical representation of the media clip comprises a handle for adjusting a partitioning between the section and an adjacent section.

21. A computer readable medium storing a computer program for execution by one or more processing units, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying a set of graphical presentations of a set of media clips that are parts of a composite presentation in a composite display area;

selecting a portion of a media clip;

performing a retiming operation to the portion of the media clip selected by the range selector in order to change a playback timing of the selected portion of the media clip.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for defining a playback curve that specifies a relationship between the media clip and the playback timing.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the retiming operation further comprises changing a timing of a portion of an audio clip that corresponds to the selected portion of the video clip according to the playback curve, wherein an audio playback speed of a particular instant is determined by a slope of the playback curve at the particular instant.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for adjusting the playback curve according to a spline interpolation.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 24, wherein the spline interpolation is based on one or more keyframes associated with the playback curve, each keyframe associated with a position in the media clip that is determined by a previously performed retiming operation.

26. The computer readable medium of claim 25, wherein the spline interpolation maintains monotonicity of the playback curve between two keyframes.

27. The computer readable medium of claim 21 further comprising adjusting a range of the selected portion of the media clip according to a user input.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 21, where the retiming operation is one of a plurality of user-selectable preset retiming operations.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the retiming operation further changes a timing of a portion of an audio clip that corresponds to the selected portion of the video clip.