Patent Application
20240089549
The present disclosure relates generally to synchronized streaming of audiovisual content.
There is a need for improved streaming of audiovisual content.
In some embodiments, a system provides substantially synchronized streaming. The system comprises at least one server, in communication with a user profile database, and operable to: communicate, over a network, with client devices connected to the Internet; provide a media stream to the client devices such that the media stream is displayed, in a substantially synchronized manner, on display screens of the client devices, wherein the client devices comprise at least one mobile device; enable a first user to share a link associated with the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the sharing of the link enables other users associated with the client devices to join the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the sharing of the link occurs during when the first user is receiving the media stream; enable users associated with the client devices to interact via the client devices such that user interactions are exchanged using the client devices simultaneously with display of the media stream on the display screens of the client devices, and such that the user interactions are displayed simultaneously with the media stream on the display screens of the client devices; and receive user playback controls from the first user to control the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the first user is enabled to pass the control of the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream to a second user, wherein the media stream comprises video content, wherein an ancillary content server, different from the at least one server, provides ancillary content for transmission to the client devices, and wherein the ancillary content is presented on the client devices, simultaneously with the media stream.
For a more complete understanding of the present disclosure, example embodiments, and their advantages, reference is now made to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate like features, and:
Although similar reference numbers may be used to refer to similar elements for convenience, it should be appreciated that each of the various example embodiments may be considered to be distinct variations.
In some embodiments, a system provides substantially synchronized streaming. The system comprises at least one server, in communication with a user profile database, and operable to: communicate, over a network, with client devices connected to the Internet; provide a media stream to the client devices such that the media stream is displayed, in a substantially synchronized manner, on display screens of the client devices, wherein the client devices comprise at least one mobile device; enable a first user to share a link associated with the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the sharing of the link enables other users associated with the client devices to join the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the sharing of the link occurs during when the first user is receiving the media stream; enable users associated with the client devices to interact via the client devices such that user interactions are exchanged using the client devices simultaneously with display of the media stream on the display screens of the client devices, and such that the user interactions are displayed simultaneously with the media stream on the display screens of the client devices; and receive user playback controls from the first user to control the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream, wherein the first user is enabled to pass the control of the substantially synchronized playback of the media stream to a second user, wherein the media stream comprises video content, wherein an ancillary content server, different from the at least one server, provides ancillary content for transmission to the client devices, and wherein the ancillary content is presented on the client devices, simultaneously with the media stream.
In the context of providing for an interactive movie experience, it is desired for multiple friends or family to participate together in a movie watching experience and to accordingly socially engage in real-time and contextually with the movie. Such interactions are ideally made in-time with the scenes appearing in the movie. In sum, none of the prior systems replicate, across the internet, the personal experience of watching a movie together with friends and loved ones.
The presently described embodiments provide for the purchasing of licensed media content, such as movies and songs, and the digital rights management tools for managing the number of playbacks and/or group purchases encompassing multiple users, viewers, and purchasers for the licensed media content. The described embodiments further provide for group scheduling of common watching times for the licensed media content and for the sharing of comments as the movie occurs and in the context of the movie viewing itself. Further, the described embodiments allow for time-indexing of the movie such that the real-time comments around the movie-watching experience can be shared and recorded in the context of the movie watching experience so that a friend who is in the viewer's social group or family can later watch a recorded version of a movie and see the contextual social commentary provided by the later viewer's friend and/or family.
In other words, the disclosed systems and methods provide for synchronization of recorded media delivery to multiple parties while providing for contextual social chat about the media delivery. The described embodiments include technology to keep any synchronized video stream to a watching party from getting too far ahead or too far behind. This synchronization can be provided, for example, by providing a feedback loop through internet communications from the receiving clients' media players back to servers operating on the main system, slowing down or speeding up one or more media streams to provide for simultaneous delivery of the same media context, and indexing of the media stream itself can be used to help confirm the relative synchronicity. The described systems further are operable to use the time encoding for tie-in trivia and voting games related to favorite movie scenes and characters. This and other second-screen content can be provided to play along in real time with a movie for a more engaging interactive experience in addition to the previously discussed features.
Generally speaking, the described systems provide for a shared experiencing of licensed media content such as movies or proprietary live video streams. Such systems can include a web server that communicates with multiple client devices over the internet whereby a user's multiple social contacts can participate in a synchronized stream of licensed media content such as movies. The system is able to schedule the multi-user experiencing of the licensed media content and further synchronize the streaming of the licensed content so the participating users receiving the media streams in a substantially synchronized manner. The system still further provides for social content interaction amongst the multiple recipients so that the multiple users can interact in a time-contextual manner consistent with the substantially synchronized receipt of the licensed media content.
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In the illustrated embodiment, it should be appreciated that the “service provider” 102 may comprise multiple related/interconnected systems and subsystems, which could be administrated through one or more business partnerships or vendor relationships, but a single connected system is illustrated in the present embodiment for ease of understanding. In the illustrated embodiment, web server(s) 108 generally provide for the top-level interaction with the various client devices 106. The web server 108 accordingly communicates with the client devices 106 to provide for user logins through their client devices, to keep track of and update user profiles or information about user preferences, as well as to facilitate purchase of licensed media content and/or physical merchandise.
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Once a purchase is approved, the system proceeds to “license” the media for online distribution to the user or to process physical goods for shipment. As to the licensing of the media for online delivery, the merchandise fulfillment server 150 connects directly or indirectly to the digital rights management (DRM) server 114, which using secure cryptography means is operable to “unlock” delivery of media from the primary media server 112, which in turn accesses and streams or facilitates the streaming of the unlocked media content that is stored on the movie or other media database 120.
It should be appreciated also that the fulfillment server 150, DRM server 114, and web server 108 would remain in communication with each to ensure that the proper licensing rights are synchronized and recorded in the user profile database 110. It should be further appreciated that licensed media content includes media content for which digital rights are intended to be maintained, and that multiple technologies exist for protecting the proprietary rights in streams of such media, including watermarking and various types of digital rights management (DRM). Currently known commercial implementations of such technologies for protecting licensed media content include Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem's “UltraViolet” (see www.uvvu.com) and Microsoft's “Silverlight”. These techniques and other techniques according to design choice are appreciated to be operable to create licensed media content as described in the present application.
As to the primary media server 112 shown in
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One possible social networking approach, which can be done through an external social network or one managed by the service provider directly to a social network of its customers, or some combination of the foregoing, is to allow a purchaser to send an “event” invitation to multiple of his or her social network connections whereby the system can schedule a social viewing for the multiple invitees who accept the invitation. The DRM server 114 in connection with the web server 108 or other described servers would be operable to manage the digital rights for the social viewing to ensure that only the permitted number of digital media download streams are provided.
As for the scheduling and payment for the social viewing, a possible approach would be to charge a certain fee that would include a multiple viewer license, such as including the ability to invite up to ten friends to do a scheduled, one-time social viewing. The scheduling server 117 is provided to communicate with the web server and external social media sites (servers 140) to facilitate the scheduling of an interactive group media stream or social viewing for a user's social network. At the end of the social viewing, the system is enabled to offer that one or more of the invited friends can purchase a similar license or even a regular DVD for shipment through traditional ground shipping, or of course to provide other possible promotional offers to the participants.
As with other embodiments described herein, the “ten friends” mentioned above for the schedule invitation is merely exemplary, and the number of invites could be a single invite, up to ten invites, up to 100 invites, or any other number according to the type of implementation considered. For example, the described system would further enable wide-scale events for purchase (revenue) purposes or for free (promotional) purposes. Thus, you could have a corporate sponsored “event” where hundreds or thousands of viewers could sign up for a live stream with commentary, second stream content, and/or gaming content or interaction. These hundreds or thousands of attendees could be by scheduled invitation, or it could be an “open” invitation.
As another example, for a motion picture hit there could be a public viewing of a “Director's Cut,” in which the director could provide commentary between major themes of a playback and/or during the playback. Thus, for example, the showing could be scheduled for Sunday night at 6 pm (e.g., Central Time) and there could potentially be hundreds of thousands of viewers watching simultaneously.
There could be provided a competitive trivia contest on a second screen, and because of the synchronization enabled by the presently described embodiments, risks of someone trying to cheat the game (e.g., by communicating with someone on a slightly differently timed stream) would be substantially mitigated. Particular issues that the disclosed system solves with respect to syncing are differing latencies between viewers/clients and multiple bandwidth issues among the clients/viewers. The disclosed embodiments are capable not just of delaying playback in certain instances but actually increasing playback (compressing time) in order to let feeds that have gotten behind catch up. Further, when the system detects that playbacks have gotten out of synch, it could disable certain functionalities (e.g., real-time games) that would be greatly affected by the lack of sync. To facilitate the synchronization of the multiple users participating in the feed of the media content, there could be provided a feedback from each of the users' video or media players through internet communications whereby the primary media server 112 or mediation server 115 is able to speed up or slow down respective streams to the different players in order to facilitate the syncing or re-syncing of the connections according to the received feedback. It should be appreciated that although internet communications for this feedback loop has been described, this is a design choice and other communications methods (such as other wired networks, wireless phone networks, cable television networks, etc.) may be appropriate according to design considerations.
The disclosed systems are further enabled to implement an approach where a group of people all owning a license to a particular media title want to watch the content together but through the internet at different locations. Again, the present DRM server 114 and associated servers that are a part of the present service provider 102 would be operable to confirm the rights of each person in the group, and the scheduling server 117 would be operable to schedule a viewing by all of the users where they would be given a synchronized common media streaming experience.
In any of the above implementations, although a first user may initiate and schedule a social viewing experience, in certain embodiments any of the participating viewers may be able to control the playback or any other aspects of the social interaction around the playback. As far as other types of control, there could be moderator roles for the “chat” or other “second screen” or other type of function outside of the media playback. Further, the control could be open where any user can control at anytime (e.g., any user could pause the movie playback at anytime). Or the control could be serially passed from one user to another.
With further reference to
By “substantially in synchronicity,” as stated above, depending on the application, this phrase might mean synchronized within 5 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 5 seconds, or 1 second, depending on design needs. In particular, if certain chat features or game features are enabled, the clients should receive media streams synchronized in such a fashion that users all have about the same number of seconds to react to the film such as by responding to a trivia question in the same number of whole seconds (or not being off by more than 1 second) or not seeing “spoilers” in the chat window while friends are watching the movie with them. Thus, the need for synchronicity will depend on whether the lack of it would end up detracting from the features being employed by the users.
All of the foregoing functionality can be distributed amongst servers and/or vendors according to system design choices, and it is expressly contemplated that all of the described functionality can be incorporated into a single server, web server, and/or vendor hosting a server or servers, and by the same token all of the described functionality can be distributed amongst various servers, web servers, and/or vendors hosting multiple servers. The described divisions of servers can be physical or virtual divisions, and the various servers can be in the same or different physical locations.
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The social elements in this figure are provided to fully engage the user with his or her friends and family that are watching the content with him or her. Specifically, as described in
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In other words, the recorded social viewing can be archived and played back complete with social interactions occurring during the original watching as if the later watcher of the content had been there observing in real-time. This feature allows for friends and family on another side of the world to still enjoy the conversation occurring around a scene and see the conversation in context of the parts of a movie that inspired the comments.
With respect to the discussion of video players, it should be noted that the means for providing these video players and second screen and other social interaction features can be accomplished by different means. One approach would be to embed a standard video player window as a frame within the web pages served through this system and provide for compatible synchronized content through a standard video player. Another approach would be to provide a customized player. The way the system would serve video to the system and combine second screen content could be effected according to the choices made in this regard. In other words, for “framed” content there could be established separate tunnels for delivering both original media and second screen content to the webpage. For a customized player, it would be possible (though not necessary) to combine the feeds at a server behind the firewall and provide them as a single stream to the customized player. One of ordinary skill in the art would be able to adapt the architecture according to system design needs along either of these paths.
In other words, and still referring to the video player design, some portions of the player functionality can be handled in servers provided by the overall service, whereas the players themselves can include embedded functionality to accomplish some of the features described above. Thus, various functionalities exist in the system 100 and can be distributed among different components within the system.
With further reference to the social interaction facilitated by the social overlay 520 and associated tools described with respect to
Referring now to
As to the various options shown for in the menu items 620, many of these have been previously discussed, but by way of quick summary the presented options in this embodiment are as follows:
a. “Watch & Buy”—Watch promotional portions of movies and be presented with options to purchase and schedule social viewing events.
b. Images”—Get access to various image captures from movies and share those movie images with your social network, coupled with you and your network being able to use those images to establish and schedule viewing events.
c. “Apps”—Access and/or download various apps that may be second-screen coordinated with the social viewing events.
d. “Characters”—Gather social information around various movie characters and establish viewing events themed around those characters.
e. “Cast & Crew”—Limited screenings associated with movie releases. This could also be provided consistent with various promotions in which selected members of the general public would get access to the limited screenings. As previously described with respect to functions like a “Director's Cut” screening, the time-indexing of the presently described embodiments provide a heightened ability to provide in-depth background information in the context of the movie and as a part of the screening.
f. “Shop”—Shop for online or physical merchandise.
g. “Music”—Similar to the “Images” feature, allows users to share musical clips or songs from movies with their social networks, whereby the users can comment and interact around the song (and potentially metadata placing the song in context) and providing for a link that could return the social users back to the interactive movie site from where the songs came. As with the other described features, this interaction may lead to group watch scheduling either directly at the social site or back at the interactive movie site or both.
h. “Social”—Various social network connections all provided in a coordinated area of the system.
i. “Logged In”—The login area that gives a user access to their purchased content, friends list and the like, which may be provided through the user records stored in the user profile database 110 (see
Referring now to
With general reference to all of the figures described above and in general description of the features and functionalities described herein, the system described also includes functionality whereby either through second screen data or through superimposed data on the media player, popular scenes or images can be suggested to users for sharing through their social networks while the real-time video stream is being watched. Thus, during that live media viewing, a prompt could show up for the users to share an image or a song, and that image or song clip, and the user's commentary, can be posted to Facebook or another social media site.
As another specific embodiment for interacting with a social media site, there exist virtual “pinboards” on the internet as a means for socially interacting and posting pictures or links of interest and allowing your social network to further comment on them and add to the posts. One current such system is Pinterest (www.pininterest.com). The present system would allow for the posting of authorized movie images, along with official or unofficial metadata about the movies and/or particular movie scenes. With included hyperlinks, the social media site could take social network users directly, e.g., to movie landing pages and/or some of the webpages described in the present application whereby users can, for example, be given promotional offers, played portions of the movies relating to the image posted, and purchase and schedule social viewings.
The same real-time index information being synced with second screen type data enables the present system to show video clips of behind-the-scenes footage and alerting the consumer during real-time playback when such scenes are available. Thus, on the primary or second screen there could be an alert (e.g., stoplight) letting the user know that behind-the-scenes footage is available. By this same token, second screen descriptive data can be synchronized to the video playback and contextually relevant information may be provided in this manner in described embodiments. Similarly, soundtrack and score information is also available in sync with the real-time movie play and can be made available for sale and/or sharing through social networks.
With further general reference to all of the embodiments described herein, it should be appreciated that the above-described chat features and/or second screen functionality can be implemented through the web server 108, or through the separate ancillary content server 125 or through another server. Further, the chat features, second screen features, metadata information feeds, or other additional functionality described herein can be implemented within or integrated within the video player itself and/or served through the media server 112 or mediation server 115. The described functionalities can be divided among hardware and software elements in various ways according to business or design needs, and such variations may remain within the scope of the claims to any patent issuing from the present application.
This application is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/888,425, which was filed on Aug. 15, 2022, which is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/290,218, which was filed on Oct. 11, 2016, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,418,845 on Aug. 16, 2022 which is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/665,693, which was filed on Mar. 23, 2015, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,674,239 on Jun. 6, 2017, which is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/756,444, which was filed on Jan. 31, 2013, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,990,303 on Mar. 24, 2015, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
While various embodiments in accordance with the disclosed principles have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and are not limiting. Thus, the breadth and scope of the example embodiments described herein should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the claims and their equivalents issuing from this disclosure. Furthermore, the above advantages and features are provided in described embodiments, but shall not limit the application of such issued claims to processes and structures accomplishing any or all of the above advantages.
As used in the disclosures and the appended claims, the terms “example embodiment,” “exemplary embodiment,” and “present embodiment” do not necessarily refer to a single embodiment, although they may, and various example embodiments may be readily combined and interchanged, without departing from the scope or spirit of example embodiments. Furthermore, the terminology as used herein is for the purpose of describing example embodiments only and is not intended to be limitations. In this respect, as used herein, the term “in” may include “in” and “on”, and the terms “a”, “an” and “the” may include singular and plural references. Furthermore, as used herein, the term “by” may also mean “from”, depending on the context. Furthermore, as used herein, the term “if” may also mean “when” or “upon”, depending on the context. Furthermore, as used herein, the words “and/or” may refer to and encompass any and all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
For example, as referred to herein, a machine or engine may be a virtual machine, computer, node, instance, host, or machine in a networked computing environment. Also as referred to herein, a networked computing environment is a collection of machines connected by communication channels that facilitate communications between machines and allow for machines to share resources. Network may also refer to a communication medium between processes on the same machine. Also as referred to herein, a server is a machine deployed to execute a program operating as a socket listener and may include software instances.
Resources may encompass any types of resources for running instances including hardware (such as servers, clients, mainframe computers, networks, network storage, data sources, memory, central processing unit time, scientific instruments, and other computing devices), as well as software, software licenses, available network services, and other non-hardware resources, or a combination thereof.
A networked computing environment may include, but is not limited to, computing grid systems, distributed computing environments, cloud computing environment, etc. Such networked computing environments include hardware and software infrastructures configured to form a virtual organization comprised of multiple resources which may be in geographically disperse locations. Although various computer elements have been illustrated herein as single computer servers or machines, such elements may operate over several different physical machines, or they may be combined as operating code instances running on a single physical machine. The claims in the present application comprehend such variation in physical machine configurations.
Although various computer elements have been illustrated herein as single computer servers or machines, such elements may operate over several different physical machines, or they may be combined as operating code instances running on a single physical machine. The claims in the present application comprehend such variation in physical machine configurations.
Various terms used herein have special meanings within the present technical field. Whether a particular term should be construed as such a “term of art,” depends on the context in which that term is used. “Connected to,” “in communication with,” or other similar terms should generally be construed broadly to include situations both where communications and connections are direct between referenced elements or through one or more intermediaries between the referenced elements, including through the internet or some other communicating network. “Network,” “system,” “environment,” and other similar terms generally refer to networked computing systems that embody one or more aspects of the present disclosure. These and other terms are to be construed in light of the context in which they are used in the present disclosure and as those terms would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art would understand those terms in the disclosed context. The above definitions are not exclusive of other meanings that might be imparted to those terms based on the disclosed context.
Words of comparison, measurement, and timing such as “at the time,” “equivalent,” “during,” “complete,” and the like should be understood to mean “substantially at the time,” “substantially equivalent,” “substantially during,” “substantially complete,” etc., where “substantially” means that such comparisons, measurements, and timings are practicable to accomplish the implicitly or expressly stated desired result.
Additionally, the section headings herein are provided for consistency with the suggestions under 37 C.F.R. 1.77 or otherwise to provide organizational cues. These headings shall not limit or characterize the invention(s) set out in any claims that may issue from this disclosure. Specifically, a description of a technology in the “Background” is not to be construed as an admission that technology is prior art to any invention(s) in this disclosure. Furthermore, any reference in this disclosure to “invention” in the singular should not be used to argue that there is only a single point of novelty in this disclosure. Multiple inventions may be set forth according to the limitations of the multiple claims issuing from this disclosure, and such claims accordingly define the invention(s), and their equivalents, that are protected thereby. In all instances, the scope of such claims shall be considered on their own merits in light of this disclosure, but should not be constrained by the headings herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17888425 | Aug 2022 | US |
| Child | 18508152 | US |
