Server side crossfading for progressive download media

• US 9,767,849 B2
• Filed: 10/17/2014
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sirius XM Radio Inc. (Liberty Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sirius XM Radio Inc. (Liberty Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Lowe, Raymond, Ward, Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Roberts, Shuan
• Application Number:
  US14/516,884
• Publication Number:
  US 20150073812A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,068 Days
• Field of Search: 700 94, 381119
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4451 User profiles; Roaming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5066 Algorithms for mapping a plurality of inter-dependent sub-tasks onto a plurality of physical CPUs mappping at compile time, see G06F8/451
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0025 Automatic or semi-automatic music composition, e.g. producing random music, applying rules from music theory or modifying a musical piece automatically producing a series of tones G10H1/26
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/06 Circuits for establishing the harmonic content of tones , or other arrangements for changing the tone colour
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/125 Medley, i.e. linking parts of different musical pieces in one single piece, e.g. sound collage, DJ mix
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/075 Musical metadata derived from musical analysis or for use in electrophonic musical instruments additional information unrelated to its juxtaposed musical file data G10H2240/091; audio retrieval G06F16/60
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/125 Library distribution, i.e. distributing musical pieces from a central or master library
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/305 Internet or TCP/IP protocol use for any electrophonic musical instrument data or musical parameter transmission purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/325 Synchronizing two or more audio tracks or files according to musical features or musical timings synchronised lyrics, e.g. for karaoke G10H2220/011
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/035 Crossfade, i.e. time domain amplitude envelope control of the transition between musical sounds or melodies, obtained for musical purposes, e.g. for ADSR tone generation, articulations, medley, remix audio mixers H04H60/04
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/571 Waveform compression, adapted for music synthesisers, sound banks or wavetables audio compression G10L19/00
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/038 Cross-faders therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided to implement and facilitate cross-fading, interstitials and other effects/processing of two or more media elements in a personalized media delivery service. Effects or crossfade processing can occur on the broadcast, publisher or server-side, but can still be personalized to a specific user, in a manner that minimizes processing on the downstream side or client device. The cross-fade can be implemented after decoding the relevant chunks of each component clip, processing, recoding and rechunking, or, the cross-fade or other effect can be implemented on the relevant chunks to the effect in the compressed domain, thus obviating any loss of quality by re-encoding. A large scale personalized content delivery service can limit the processing to essentially the first and last chunks of any file, there being no need to processing the full clip.

Claims

1. A method for implementing a server side crossfade or other transitional effect using chunked media, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of media clips to use in the effect;

determining, for each of the plurality of clips, beginning and end chunks to process for the effect and core chunks to be excluded from the effect;

processing the beginning and end chunks of a first one of the plurality of clips in compressed format by time aligning and combining the beginning and end chunks of the first clip with one or more chunks of at least one other clip of the plurality of clips; and

transmitting the core chunks and the processed beginning and end chunks of the first clip to a plurality of client devices each corresponding to a respective user, wherein the processing is personalized such that the beginning and end chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a new index file for the first clip.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining is performed via an algorithm that assesses the number of chunks to process for the effect.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the algorithm inputs at least one of the following as parameters:

(i) intra and outro information of each of the plurality of clips, (ii) type of the effect, and (iii) audio trajectory of the effect.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing is personalized such that the beginning and end chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user, and the core chunks of the first clip are provided to each respective user without additional modifications.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving data from at least one of the plurality of client devices used to generate inferences from behavior of the respective users on the at least one client device, wherein the processing is personalized based on the received data.

7. A method of providing server side crossfading for a personalized media delivery service, the method comprising:

providing a set of compressed chunked clips to be delivered by the service;

dividing each clip in the set into core chunks and custom chunks; and

when a first clip in the set is designated to be sent to a client device corresponding to a respective user of the service;

processing the custom chunks of the first clip in compressed format to implement the crossfade as per in accordance with a defined protocol; and

transmitting the core chunks of the first clip and the processed custom chunks to the client device, wherein the processing is personalized such that the custom chunks are processed differently for different users of the service.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the processing includes combining data in the custom chunks of the first clip with data in one or more chunks of at least one other clip in the set to generate one or more replacement chunks.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the processing further includes time aligning the data in the custom chunks of the first clip with the data in the one or more chunks of the at least one other clip.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the core chunks and the custom chunks of each clip in the set are encrypted, wherein the custom chunks of the first clip are decrypted prior to the processing;

or

the core chunks of each clip in the set are encrypted and the custom chunks of each clip in the set are not encrypted.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the core chunks and the custom chunks of each clip in the set are encrypted, the method further comprising encrypting the generated replacement chunks.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one of:

the core chunks of each clip in the set are common to all users of the service and do not require processing; and

the processing is offloaded to at least one of a local or a cloud based server.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one of:

(i) for each clip in the set, only its first and last chunks are custom chunks;

(ii) the processing is performed using cloud computing technology; and

(iii) the processing is performed locally.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein, for each clip in the set, only its first and last chunks are custom chunks.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein the processing is personalized such that the custom chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user, and the core chunks of the first clip are provided to each respective user without additional modifications.

16. The method of claim 7, further comprising receiving data from the client device used to generate inferences from behavior of the respective user on the client device, wherein the processing is personalized based on the received data.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

identify a plurality of chunked media clips to use in a server side crossfade or other transitional effect;

determine, for each of the plurality of clips, beginning and end chunks to process for the effect and core chunks to be excluded from the effect; and

process the beginning and end chunks of a first one of the plurality of clips in compressed format by time aligning and combining the beginning and end chunks of the first clip with one or more chunks of at least one other clip of the plurality of clips; and

transmit the core chunks and the processed beginning and end chunks of the first clip to a plurality of client devices each corresponding to a respective user, wherein the processing is personalized such that the beginning and end chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, further containing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing device to create a new index file for the first clip.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the determining is performed via an algorithm that assesses the number of chunks to process for the effect.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the algorithm inputs at least one of the following as parameters:

(i) intro and outro information of each of the plurality of clips, (ii) type of the effect, and (iii) audio trajectory of the effect.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the processing is personalized such that the beginning and end chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user, and the core chunks of the first clip are provided to each respective user without additional modifications.

22. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, further containing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing device to receive data from at least one of the plurality of client devices used to generate inferences from behavior of the respective users on the at least one client device, wherein the processing is personalized based on the received data.

23. A system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory containing instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to;

provide a set of chunked clips to be delivered by a service;

divide each clip in the set into core chunks and custom chunks; and

when a first clip in the set is designated to be sent to a client device corresponding to a respective user of the service;

process the custom chunks of the first clip in compressed format to implement the crossfade in accordance with a defined protocol; and

transmit the core chunks of the first clip and the processed custom chunks to the client device, wherein the processing is personalized such that the custom chunks are processed differently for different users of the service.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the processing includes combining data in the custom chunks of the first clip with data in one or more chunks of at least one other clip in the set to generate one or more replacement chunks.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein for each clip in the set, only its first and last chunks are custom chunks, and wherein the processing includes time aligning and combining data in the custom chunks of the first clip with data in one or more chunks of at least one other clip in the set into composite data.

26. The system of claim 24, wherein at least one of:

(i) the core chunks and the custom chunks of each clip in the set are encrypted, wherein the custom chunks of the first clip are decrypted prior to the processing;

(ii) the memory further contains instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to encrypt the generated replacement chunks;

(iii) the core chunks of each clip in the set are common to all users of the service and do not require processing; and

(iv) for each clip in the set, only the first and last chunks are custom chunks.

27. The system of claim 23, wherein the processing is offloaded to at least one of a local server or a cloud-based server.

28. The system of claim 23, wherein, for each clip in the set, only its first and last chunks are custom chunks, and wherein:

(i) the processing is performed using cloud computing technology, or

(ii) the processing is performed locally.

29. The system of claim 23, wherein the processing is personalized such that the custom chunks of the first clip are processed differently for each respective user, and the core chunks of the first clip are provided to each respective user without additional modifications.

30. The system of claim 23, wherein the memory further contains instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to receive data from the client device used to generate inferences from behavior of the respective user on the client device, wherein the processing is personalized based on the received data.