Accessing annotations across multiple target media streams

• US 6,484,156 B1
• Filed: 09/15/1999
• Issued: 11/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bargeron, David M, Gupta, Anoop
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/396,707
• Time in Patent Office: 1,161 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/10, 707/102, 707/500, 707/512, 707/3, 709/203, 709/206, 709/219, 379/88.17, 345/823
• US Class Current: 707/802
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/748 Hypervideo linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object in the context of video distribution systems H04N21/858
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

An annotation server uses a hierarchical annotation storage structure to maintain a correspondence between a plurality of multimedia stream annotations and a hierarchically higher group identifier. The annotations corresponding to the different multimedia streams can easily be accessed concurrently by referencing the group identifier.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media containing a computer program for annotating streaming media, wherein the program performs steps comprising:

receiving an annotation retrieval request from a user of a client computer;

accessing, based on the annotation retrieval request, a group identifier in a hierarchical annotation storage structure, wherein the group identifier identifies a plurality of media streams each corresponding to different media content;

retrieving multiple annotations in the hierarchical annotation storage structure that are at a lower hierarchical level than the group identifier; and

providing the multiple annotations to a client computer to be presented to a user.

2. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the annotation retrieval request includes user-entered search criteria.

3. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the retrieving comprises:

comparing all of the annotations at the lower hierarchical level to search criteria; and

identifying the annotations at the lower hierarchical level that satisfy the search criteria.

4. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as part of the annotation retrieval request, a stream identifier identifying one media stream of the plurality of media streams.

5. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 4, wherein the stream identifier comprises a uniform resource locator (URL).

6. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 4, wherein the accessing comprises determining the group identifier based at least in part on a portion of the stream identifier.

7. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as part of the annotation retrieval request, a portion of a stream identifier identifying one media stream of the plurality of media streams.

8. A method comprising:

receiving user input identifying annotation search criteria;

accessing a plurality of annotations corresponding to a plurality of multimedia streams to identify a set of annotations that satisfy the search criteria, wherein each of the plurality of multimedia streams corresponds to different multimedia content, and wherein the accessing comprises,

using a hierarchical annotation storage structure to determine which groups of the plurality of annotations to access in order to identify the set of annotations,

identifying a group identifier node corresponding to the request, and

accessing all lower level nodes in the hierarchical annotation storage structure that correspond to the group identifier; and

presenting the set of annotations to the user.

9. A method as recited in claim 8, wherein the user input includes a multimedia stream identifier that identifies an annotation in a lowest level of a hierarchical annotation storage structure.

10. A computer-readable memory containing a computer program that is executable by a computer to perform the method recited in claim 8.

11. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, comprising:

a first data node containing data representing an annotation group identifier, wherein the group identifier identifies a plurality of annotations corresponding to a plurality of media streams, and wherein each of the plurality of media streams corresponds to different multimedia content; and

a second data node containing data representing a first plurality of annotations corresponding to the annotation group identifier, the first data node being at a hierarchically higher level than the second data node in a hierarchical storage structure.

12. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

a third data node containing data representing a second plurality of annotations corresponding to the annotation group identifier, the first data node being at a hierarchically higher level than the third data node in the hierarchical storage structure.

13. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 12, wherein the second node and the third node are at the same hierarchical level.

14. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the first node is one hierarchical level higher than the second node.

15. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein each of the first plurality of annotations corresponds to a multimedia stream.

16. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

a third data node containing data representing a plurality of annotation group identifiers, including the annotation group identifier represented by the data contained in the first data node, the third data node being at a hierarchically higher level than the first data node in the hierarchical storage structure.

17. A system comprising:

an annotation database that stores one or more collections of annotations in a hierarchical annotation storage structure having the annotations at a first hierarchical level and a set of group identifiers at a second hierarchical level, wherein each of the annotations identifies at least a segment of a media stream of one or more media streams, wherein each group identifier identifies two or more of the media streams, and wherein each media stream corresponds to different media content; and

an annotation manager to control storage and retrieval of the plurality of annotations from the annotation database, wherein the annotation manager is configured to perform steps comprising;

identifying, based at least in part on the set of group identifiers, a plurality of the one or more collections of annotations to search,

searching the plurality of annotations to identify one or more annotations that satisfy a search criteria, and

presenting the one or more annotations to a user.

18. A system as recited in claim 17, wherein the annotation manager is further configured to perform a step comprising:

managing presentation, to the user, of media stream segments corresponding to the one or more annotations.

19. system as recited in claim 18, further comprising:

a multimedia server coupled to the annotation manager;

a client computer coupled to the multimedia server and to the annotation manager; and

wherein the media stream segments corresponding to the one or more annotations are streamed to the client computer from the multimedia server.

20. A system as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

a client computer, coupled to the annotation manager, to receive the annotations and display them to the user.

21. A system as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

a client computer, coupled to the annotation manager, configured to present a graphical user interface to the user in order to allow the user to input the search criteria.

22. A system as recited in claim 17, wherein the client computer is further configured to:

receive annotation set information from the user;

receive, from the annotation manager, media stream identifiers of one or more media streams corresponding to the annotation set; and

display the media stream identifiers to the user.

23. A system as recited in claim 22, wherein the annotation manager is further configured to:

receive the annotation set information from the client computer;

access a media stream target table to determine which of the one or more media streams corresponds to the annotation set; and

return the identifiers of the one or more media streams identified in the target table to the client computer as the media stream identifiers.

24. A system as recited in claim 17, wherein the search criteria includes a group identifier.

25. A system as recited in claim 24, wherein the group identifier comprises a portion of a uniform resource locator (URL).