Providing multiple video perspectives of activities through a data network to a remote multimedia server for selective display by remote viewing audiences

• US 8,610,786 B2
• Filed: 02/02/2012
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Front Row Technologies LLC (Ortiz & Lopez PLLC)
• Original Assignee: Front Row Technologies LLC (Ortiz & Lopez PLLC)
• Inventors: Ortiz, Luis M.
• Primary Examiner(s): SELBY, GEVELL V
• Application Number:
  US13/364,793
• Publication Number:
  US 20120133772A1
• Time in Patent Office: 684 Days
• Field of Search: 348/143, 348/207.1, 348/211.99, 3482111-2113, 348/211.11, 348/333.05
• US Class Current: 348/211.8
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21805 enabling multiple viewpoints, e.g. using a plurality of cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4126 The peripheral being portable, e.g. PDAs or mobile phones
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4181 for conditional access
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4263 involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4314 for fitting data in a restricted space on the screen, e.g. EPG data in a rectangular grid
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6131 involving transmission via a mobile phone network wireless downlink channel access H04W74/006
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8126 involving additional data, e.g. news, sports, stocks, weather forecasts
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/38 Transmitter circuitry for the transmission of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/44 Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/77 between a recording apparatus and a television camera
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

Multiple visual perspectives in video of private and public activities including those in public areas such as entertainment venues captured by cameras located near the activities can be transmitted over data networks to a server where video-related data is processed and recorded for selective display by authorized, remote video display devices (e.g., HDTV, set-top boxes, computers, handheld devices) in wired/wireless communication with the server. Users can be registered and authorized to access the server to provide/access video captured by cameras at activities. Wireless handheld devices can selectively retrieve video-related data captured at activities for server storage and subsequent display by video display devices. Captured video/pictures can be organized in a server based on at least one of: activity title, activity time, activity date, activity place, wireless handheld device location at time of video recording, distance from location of interest. Simultaneous display of multiple videos on a display can be synchronized.

Claims

1. A system for remote viewing of at least one activity from at least two different visual perspectives to a remote audience, said system comprising:

a server to receive the at least two different visual perspectives of the at least one activity simultaneously captured during the at least one activity as a streaming video signal by a combination of at least one of a plurality of cameras singularly included in each of at least one of a plurality of hand held devices and at least one of a plurality of standalone cameras, all located near the at least one activity;

said server having circuitry to process the streaming video signal into video-related data and record the video-related data in a database associated with said server;

selection means to selectively retrieve said streaming video signal and display said video-related data by at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices authorized to communicate with the server and retrieve streaming video-related data over a data network; and

a registration module to register the at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices and authorize access to said server.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said server communicates with at least one of a plurality of wireless hand held devices, wherein each of said at least one of said plurality of wireless hand held devices includes integrated components comprising a GUI based menu driven touch screen display and a video processing unit with video tuning hardware to select segments of the streaming video signal viewable on said GUI based menu driven touch screen display as real time or pre-recorded video footage.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the registration module authorizes access to said server to retrieve the streaming video signal of the at least two different visual perspectives from said database.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the registration module authorizes access to said server to upload the streaming video signal into said database of the at least one activity captured by the combination of the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras camera.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising an activity organization module to organize the streaming video signal uploaded into said database from a combination of streaming video signals emanating from the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras, wherein video from the streaming video signal is automatically organized by said server based on at least one of:

at least one activity title, an activity time, an activity date, an activity place, a location of the at least one wireless handheld device at a time of a video recording of the streaming video signal.

6. The system of claim 2, further comprising an activity organization module to organize the streaming video signal simultaneously captured during the at least one activity by a combination of the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras, located near the at least one activity and provided to said server, wherein said streaming video signal is automatically organized by at least one of said server based on at least one of:

at least one activity title, an activity time, an activity date, an activity place, a location of the at least one of said plurality of wireless handheld devices at a time of recording of the streaming video signal.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said registration module registers at least one remote video display device among the at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices and authorizes access to said server to selectively retrieve and display the streaming video-related data captured at the at least one activity.

8. The system of claim 2, further comprising an activity organization module to provide selective access to the streaming video signal of the at least two of said plurality of different visual perspectives from said server, wherein said streaming video signal is provided to at least one remote video display device among said remote video display devices from said server based on a request for at least one of:

at least one activity title, an activity time, an activity date, an activity place, a location of the at least one of said plurality of wireless handheld devices at a time of video recording, and a distance from a location of interest.

9. The system of claim 2, further comprising a community association module to associate with at least one of a plurality of online communities also registered within said server and to provide selective access to the streaming video signal of the at least one activity stored on said server that were captured using a combination of the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras, located near the at least one of said plurality of activities and stored on said server in association with the at least one online community, wherein the streaming video signal is provided from said server based on requests of at least one of:

a name of said at least one of said plurality of online communities at least one activity title, an activity time, an activity date, an activity place, a location of the at least one of said plurality of wireless handheld devices at a time of a recording of the streaming video signal, and a distance from a location of interest.

10. The system of claim 2, further comprising a community association module to associate with at least one of a plurality of online communities also registered within said server and to provide selective access to the streaming video signal of activities stored in said database that were captured using a combination of the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras, operated and located near the at least one activity and stored in said database in association with the at least one of said plurality of online communities, wherein said streaming video signal is provided from said server based on requests of at least one of:

a name of the at least one of said plurality of online communities, an activity title, an activity time, an activity date, an activity place, a location of the at least one of said plurality of wireless handheld devices at a time of recording of the streaming video signal, and a distance from a location of interest.

11. A system for synchronized remote viewing of at least one of a plurality of activities from at least two of a plurality of visual perspectives to a remote audience, said system comprising:

a multimedia server including a video synchronization module, wherein said multimedia server comprises circuitry to simultaneously receive at least two visual perspectives captured during the at least one activity as video by a combination of at least one of a plurality of cameras singularly included in each at least one of a plurality of wireless hand held devices and at least one of a plurality of standalone cameras, wherein the combination of the at least one camera and the at least one standalone camera are configured to generate video image tags with time of capture information, and said video synchronization module processes the at least two visual perspectives into video-related data for selective retrieval and synchronized display on at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices comprising at least one of a plurality of hand held device displays; and

a video synchronization engine for synchronizing the playing of video of the at least two visual perspectives of the at least one activity on the at least one of the plurality of remote video display devices based on time of capture information related to said video image tags on images.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein said at least one of said plurality of hand held device displays including an onboard video processing unit, an onboard GPS chipset, said onboard video processing unit having circuitry to process incoming and outgoing video furnished with GPS space and time coordinates on a toolbar screen inset.

13. A method for remote viewing of at least one activity from at least two different visual perspectives to a remote audience, said method comprising:

receiving via a server, the at least two different visual perspectives of the at least one activity simultaneously captured during the at least one activity as a streaming video signal by a combination of at least one of a plurality of cameras singularly included in each of at least one of a plurality of hand held devices and at least one of a plurality of standalone cameras, all located near the at least one activity;

processing the streaming video signal into video-related data and recording the video-related data in a database associated with said server via circuitry associated with said server;

selectively retrieving said streaming video signal and displaying said video-related data by at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices authorized to communicate with the server and retrieve streaming video-related data over a data network; and

registering via a registration module, the at least one of a plurality of remote video display devices and authorizing access to said serve via a registration module.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein said server communicates with at least one of a plurality of wireless hand held devices.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein each of said at least one of said plurality of wireless hand held devices includes integrated components comprising a GUI based menu driven touch screen display and a video processing unit with video tuning hardware to select segments of the streaming video signal viewable on said GUI based menu driven touch screen display as real time or pre-recorded video footage.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein the registration module authorizes access to said server to retrieve the streaming video signal of the at least two different visual perspectives from said database.

17. The method of claim 13 wherein the registration module authorizes access to said server to upload the streaming video signal into said database of the at least one activity captured by the combination of the at least one of said plurality of cameras and the at least one of said plurality of standalone cameras camera.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein said server communicates with at least one of a plurality of wireless hand held devices.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein each of said at least one of said plurality of wireless hand held devices includes integrated components comprising a GUI based menu driven touch screen display and a video processing unit with video tuning hardware to select segments of the streaming video signal viewable on said GUI based menu driven touch screen display as real time or pre-recorded video footage.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein said server communicates with at least one of a plurality of wireless hand held devices and wherein each of said at least one of said plurality of wireless hand held devices includes integrated components comprising a GUI based menu driven touch screen display and a video processing unit with video tuning hardware to select segments of the streaming video signal viewable on said GUI based menu driven touch screen display as real time or pre-recorded video footage.