Portable screening room

• US 7,533,182 B2
• Filed: 01/24/2005
• Issued: 05/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Starz Media LLC (Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Starz Media LLC (Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation)
• Inventors: Beauvois, Chris, Wurtzel, Yitzchak, Rozenblat, Ilya
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Wei Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): Brophy; Matthew J
• Application Number:
  US11/039,927
• Publication Number:
  US 20060164422A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• Field of Search: 709231-250, 717100-125, 717168-178
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/854 Content authoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

A method and system are provided for screening media segments received from at least one originator. The method includes receiving at least one media segment from an originator, providing the media segment to at least one screener, associating feedback from the at least one screener with the at least one segment, thereby obtaining associated feedback, and delivering the associated feedback regarding the at least one segment to the originator of the media segment. The feedback provided to the originator is input by a screener using a portable screening room. The system for screening media segments includes an interface enabling communication between the originator of the media segment and at least one screener screening the media segment and a portable screening room used by the at least one screener to associate feedback with the media segment that is then sent to the originator.

Claims

1. A method for screening contiguous video segments including at least one segment, the method comprising:

receiving the at least one segment from at least one originator, wherein the at least one segment is pre-recorded and at least partially created by the at least one originator;

storing the at least one segment with a media store, wherein the media store is configured to provide the at least one segment using a first peer-to-peer protocol, providing the at least one segment to a first screener at a first portable screening room, wherein the first screener receives information from the media store by passing information over a local area network (LAN) without passing information over the Internet;

providing the at least one segment to a second screener at a second portable screening room using a second peer-to-peer protocol different from the first peer-to-peer protocol, wherein the second screener receives information by passing information over the Internet,

scheduling a concurrent viewing of the at least one segment with at least the first and second screeners;

synchronizing playback on both of the first and second portable screening rooms;

associating feedback from at least one of the first and/or second screener with the at least one segment, thereby obtaining associated feedback; and

delivering the associated feedback and the at least one segment to the at least one originator.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the associating includes associating metadata with the at least one segment.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the associated feedback includes feedback input by at least two screeners regarding the at least one segment.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

notifying the at least one screener that the at least one segment has been provided.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the synchronizing step includes time-coordinating a concurrent viewing.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the synchronizing step includes frame-sequence-coordinating the concurrent viewing.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first peer-to-peer protocol uses a bit-torrent protocol.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second peer-to-peer protocol uses a K2B protocol.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the associating step prevents the associated feedback from being related to playback anomalies.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the delivering step includes delivering the associated feedback and the at least one segment to a media store located across the Internet from the at least one originator, wherein the at least one originator has access to the media store.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the first and second portable screening rooms allows zooming of the at least one segment.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first and second portable screening rooms allow distributed control of the synchronized playback whereby a control action performed by the first screener affects playback on the second portable screening room.

9. A computer readable medium storing program instructions for execution on a computer system, which when executed by the computer system causes the computer system to perform a method for screening contiguous video segments including at least one segment, the computer readable medium comprising code for:

receiving the at least one segment from at least one originator, wherein the at least one segment is pre-recorded and at least partially created by the at least one originator;

providing the at least one segment to a first screener at a first screening room, wherein the first screener receives information by passing information over a local area network (LAN) using a first network protocol without passing information over the Internet;

providing the at least one segment to a second screener at a second screening room, wherein the second screener receives information by passing information over the Internet using a second network protocol different from the first network protocol;

synchronizing playback on both of the first and second screening rooms;

associating feedback from at least one of the first and/or second screener with the at least one segment, thereby obtaining associated feedback; and

delivering the associated feedback to the at least one originator.