Patent Application
20160212487
Embodiments of the disclosure relate generally to on-line media presentations. Embodiments relate more particularly to a method and system for creating a new type of video experience using on-line streaming media.
It is well known in the media arts that users may upload or watch video content on the Internet. An example of this technology are the streaming services such as YouTube/Vimeo platforms, which embed a media player in a web-page that allows users on the Internet to view or watch said video. The content inside is ‘streamed’ directly from the servers of the respective media streaming service. As a secondary offering, the above streaming services also provide API services. These API services allow other web-sites, platforms, mobile applications, media companies and blogs to embed any authorized video from the host streaming services into their own pages. This technology is used by well establish media companies such as nytimes.com, huffingtonpost.com, wordpress.com and upworthy.com etc., that use and embed youtube and Vimeo videos on their pages. In fact, upworthy.com, which has been the fastest growing media company in the world, is solely based on the concept of embedding videos from YouTube which are repackaged with relevant titles and description.
The above mentioned companies use the most basic technique of embedding a video, which in essence plays one video, either from Youtube or Vimeo, from start to finish. However, a need exists for using the advanced API's (Application Programmer Interfaces) that are provided by both youtube.com and vimeo.com for providing users with a more robust user experience, where the user may not want to embed the whole source video but desires to embed only a portion of the video. These advanced API's may be used to summon specific media resources and request streaming at specific times and stop streaming at specific times within the stream.
The user may also want to splice together different portions of different source videos, either from the same hosing services or different hosting services. The user may desire to insert his own images or texts to be able to make the video experience much more effective for his audience. Lastly, the user may also want to add his own annotations that are displayed at specific desired parts of this video compilation.
Also, it would be desirable to provide a custom user control bar which hides the default control bars for the embedded player provided by the above mentioned services. Additionally, it would be desirable to have the audience of the said video created by the said user, be unaware of when certain resource stops streaming and a different one begins streaming providing the audience with a single seamless video experience. The whole video, that is comprised of portions of various source videos along with the images, text and annotations would need to play seamlessly so that the audience are able to enjoy it as one single integrated video experience. The present invention solves these problems in a unique and novel fashion over the prior art.
In the light of the above discussion, there appears to be a need for providing a new type of video experience using on-line streaming media.
The principal object of the embodiments herein is to provide a method and system for creating a mash-up from a number of streaming media content including textual and image annotations which may accompany the streaming media.
Another object of the embodiments herein is to provide streaming and annotations that are mapped to a “master time-line” creating a seamless user experience of one single media presentation wherein the user may play, pause, seek, scroll video and related annotations back and forth.
Another object of the embodiments herein is to store references to external sources from where the media is streamed in addition to the specific times within a time-line of the stream for when the streaming should begin and end. The original media itself is not replicated but rather they stream directly from respective host streaming services based on the references stored and respective API services offered by the streaming services.
The above-mentioned needs are met by a computer-implemented method, computer program product and system for creating seamless narrated videos using real time streaming media. This computer program product, that offers services based on this invention would henceforth in this patent application be referred to as ‘NR8’ (pronounced as ‘narrate’). Also an individual video compilation (comprising of different media source streams, images, text and annotations) as described in the above sections would henceforth in this patent application be referred to as a ‘nr8’ (pronounced as ‘narrate’).
An example of a system for creating a streaming media compilation having time-synchronized annotations includes a computing device configured with a media player to play videos that are streamed from one or more external servers. The system also includes a web browser configured within the computing device to display desired web pages. Further, the system includes a web server for streaming media and nr8 playback and a network to connect the computing device to a web browser. Furthermore, the system includes a processing module configured within the web server and operable to perform: access streaming media from one or more external sources through a browser user interface; pass two entities, a set of rules and a nr8 engine, which are necessary to play the requested nr8 to a requesting browser; tag and annotating the streaming media; map the annotations to a master time-line thereby providing a single seamless video experience of one single media presentation wherein the user performs a desired action, the action includes one of play, pause, seek and scroll; and display a top panel and a bottom panel to a user through a Nr8 user interface. Moreover, the computer-implemented method includes displaying a top panel and a bottom panel to a user through a Nr8 user interface, top panel is where the media steam is played along with the images and text whereas the bottom panel is the one where the time synchronized annotations are displayed.
These and other aspects of the embodiments herein will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. It should be understood, however, that the following descriptions, while indicating preferred embodiments and numerous specific details thereof, are given by way of illustration and not of limitation. Many changes and modifications may be made within the scope of the embodiments herein without departing from the spirit thereof, and the embodiments herein include all such modifications.
In the accompanying figures, similar reference numerals may refer to identical or functionally similar elements. These reference numerals are used in the detailed description to illustrate various embodiments and to explain various aspects and advantages of the present disclosure.
YouTube and/or Vimeo players to allow a seamless playback.
The above-mentioned needs are met by a method and system for producing or creating a streaming media compilation having time-synchronized annotations. The following detailed description is intended to provide example implementations to one of ordinary skill in the art, and is not intended to limit the invention to the explicit disclosure, as one or ordinary skill in the art will understand that variations can be substituted that are within the scope of the invention as described.
Specifically, the present invention describes a video editing, splicing based streaming media, web annotation and tagging software tool. The software tool is herein referred to as a “NR8”. Web annotation is an online annotation associated with a web resource, typically a web page. Typically, annotation is a metadata (for instance, a comment or an explanation) that is attached to text, image or other data. Further, web annotation allows a user to add, modify or remove information from the web resource without actually modifying the resource itself.
The computing device 102 is operated by a user who desires to splice, tag and annotate streaming media. Examples of the computing device include, but are not limited to, a personal computer (PC), laptops, a mobile phone, a tablet device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smart phone and a laptop.
Typically, the web browser 104 is configured within the computing device 102. Typically, the web browser 104 is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources (such as, web pages, images and videos) on the World Wide Web. Examples of the web browser 104 include, but are not limited to, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari.
The web server 108 is an application that processes requests on the World Wide Web (www). The primary function of the web server 108 is to store, process and deliver web pages.
The database 110 stores composed video compilations also referred to as nr8's.
The search engine 112 allows a search feature that allows the user to search for desired text key words, resulting in specific annotation pages of the matching video compilations or nr8's.
The processing module 114 is configured with a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the contents of which cause the web server 108 to perform the method disclosed herein.
It should be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that
Referring now to
Referring now to
Turning once again to
As can be seen in the block diagram of
More specifically, a NR8 user interface typically will show the user a top panel and a bottom panel wherein the top panel contains the embedded streaming video, user loaded images and user uploaded text (text that appears in between videos) and the bottom panel contains annotation text as well as annotation images that are time-synchronized with the top panel. It should be understood that while the video contents of the top panel are directly streamed from external services such as for example YouTube and Vimeo, the texts and images used in text segments and annotations are stored locally on the NR8 server and are made available to the web-browser during a NR8 playback.
In accordance with the present invention the difference between Nr8 and other media annotation and tagging inventions are as follows:
With NR8 platform, the tags/annotations and the underlying media are not stored together. The media streams directly from streaming services.
The media sources themselves are unaware of the tagging/annotations.
The tagging itself is not associated the media key-frames but merely are associated with the nr8 video's master time-line.
The tags created by various nr8 composers are NOT consolidated and they live on their independent existence.
In another preferred embodiment, since the tags/annotations are separate from the underlying media, each media source could potentially be used in an unlimited number of Nr8's. This is envisioned for cases of popular media streams where different nr8's might simultaneously exist where the same media is, say, translated to different languages or some of these popular media streams may be annotated with a spectrum of differing opinions as the nr8 composer sees fit.
The concept of having a youtube/Vimeo in a web page is called embedding a media player. The content inside is ‘streamed’ directly from the servers of youtube, Vimeo and/or other media streaming services using the same type of functionality. A lot of well-established media companies such as for example the nytimes.com, huffingtonpost.com, wordpress.com and upworthy.com etc., embed youtube and Vimeo vidoes on their pages. In fact, upworthy.com, which has been the fastest growing media company in the world, is solely based on the concept of embedding videos in a page with some description and catchy title.
It is well known that the aforementioned companies use the most basic technique of embedding a video. More specifically, playing a single or one video (either from youtube or Vimeo) from start to finish as an example. However, in case of NR8 which is the present invention, it uses advanced API's (Application Programmer Interfaces) that are provided by both youtube.com and vimeo.com. These advanced API's are used to summon specific media resources and allow a streaming request to start at specific times and stop streaming at specific times within the stream. The present invention, also provides custom user control bars which hide the default control bars for the embedded player provided by the above mentioned services. It should be understood that the user is unaware of when certain resource stops streaming and a different one begins streaming as he/she experiences nr8 functionality as a single seamless video experience in accordance with a preferred embodiment.
Referring now to
Since a nr8 may have a top panel (streaming audio/video) as well as bottom panel (annotations) as illustrated in
Turning once again to
Referring now to
Referring now to
As described in the above section as to how number players are simultaneously pre-loaded and allowed to pre-buffer, when the user clicks play, the necessary player is made visible and played. When it is time to transition to the next player, the NR8 player simply hides the current player and unhides the next one. This will have the effect of completely seamless transition with no interruption that would be associated with loading a new player and also buffering. The result is remarkably seamless, uninterrupted video experience that the user can enjoy.
Referring now to
Therefore, any registered user of NR8 service may create a ‘narrative’ or a ‘nr8 experience’ using the ‘nr8 composition’ user interface as shown and illustrated in
Once a certain segment is chosen, this segment will then appear as an embedded media player so that the composer can add annotations. The user interface provides ‘annotation start’ and ‘annotation end’ arrows to specify specific portions of the segment that the composer can choose to annotate. This UI provides a text-box and a mechanism to upload an image to provide annotation text and images. At any point in time during the nr8 composition, the composer has the ability to play the nr8 that has been composed thus far, from start to finish, using the embedded nr8 on the compose page. This will allow him to review the nr8 as it is being composed and also to preview before ‘submitting’. Once the composer has finished composing the nr8, he will then submit the nr8 to be stored in a database and disseminated to other users of the service who want to watch the nr8.
The original composer (user) can also revisit at a later point in time to edit a previously composed nr8. Composing a nr8 is comparable to a standard ‘video editing’ process. ‘Video editing’ is a common terminology used in standard software such as Apple's Final Cut Pro, Apple's iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Adobe After Effects, weVideo etc. These software allow a user to make a single video experience using individual video clips. From a user experience stand point composing a nr8 feels very similar to that of traditional ‘video editing’.
However there are very fundamental differences as shown a traditional video editing software and nr8 composition/editing interface. For every product mentioned above, the user either owns the original content a.k.a. source content or otherwise is in possession of the content. The content is actually stored locally in most cases except for weVideo where the content could be on weVideo cloud servers but they are still ‘owned’ by the content editor. In all of the above cases, the final video itself is stored in a single location as one video. However with NR8 service, the composer does not possess the source content and neither does he possess the edited content. He/she merely defines time-based rules for streaming specific media resources from external streaming services. The final Nr8 itself is just a set of rules, and the content referenced in these rules stream directly from the respective streaming services.
Referring now to
As described in previous sections and
Turning now to
However with NR8, referring again to
This invention provides an ability to quickly preview multiple snippets of the videos with minimal navigation and minimal time spent. This is because the snippets are played right on the search results page and also the snippets comprise of the specific parts of the the videos which are likely relevant to the user based on the search he performed. The search experience described in this invention is significantly more efficient and better suited for video content compared to prior art.h.
Referring now to
In any embodiment of the invention, the video content is not directly indexed nor are the video's indexed to certain key-frames. What is indexed is text annotations which are stored on Nr8's servers which are mapped to a Nr8 master time-line. This master time-line is in turn mapped to certain streaming media. Thus NR8 service allows indirectly indexing these streaming media.
One advantage of the above technique of indirect indexing of the media is that nr8's can be used to index any of the media streams on media streaming services such as Youtube and Vimeo. The other advantage is that the same streaming media source can be annotated any number of times through different Nr8's.
To state the importance of the above embodiment of the invention: services such as Google have been able to create a great service by cataloging and indexing all the text data it can access. However, much of the actual contents of the video's, including the video's it owns on it's youtube product is invisible to Google and other search engines. The only way video data is cataloged and indexed currently is through cataloging and indexing title text and “tags words” associated with the WHOLE video. Often times title text and “tag” text are far too small to fully represent all the content that is inside the video.
In the above mentioned services such as Google, even if the title text does accurately represent the content in the video in a search results, the users are still faced with the task of having to swift through the entire video in order to find/watch the specific part of the video that is relevant to them. However, Nr8 allows search engines to catalog and index these videos based on much larger text data represented by text annotations. More over the synchronized text and video inside a Nr8 leads users to the specific time in the Nr8 that contains the exact information that they are seeking. This solution could have significant impact.
In another embodiment of this invention, referring to
Referring now to
Almost all major news sites such as nytimes.com, cnn.com and also popular blogs, embed video players (YouTube, Vimeo etc) inside their pages. When an external player is embedded in a page, that part of the browser real estate will be totally controller by the service which provides the API. The current invention described here-in provides a similar service where the NR8 player can be embedded in other web-pages just like they embed youtube and Vimeo players. However, the key difference is that the NR8 player itself may contain other embedded players (such as Youtube and Vimeo) inside of it as depicted in the
In another embodiment of the invention, referring to
System Block Diagram
The example computer system 900 includes a processor 902 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), or both), a main memory 904, and a static memory 906, which communicate with each other via a bus 908. The computer system 900 may further include a video display unit 910 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 900 also includes an alphanumeric input device 912 (e.g., a keyboard), a user interface (UI) navigation device 914 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 916, a signal generation device 918(e.g., a speaker), and a network interface device 920. The computer system 900 may also include a environmental input device 926 that may provide a number of inputs describing the environment in which the computer system 900 or another device exists, including, but not limited to, any of a Global Positioning Sensing (GPS) receiver, a temperature sensor, a light sensor, a still photo or video camera, an audio sensor (e.g., a microphone), a velocity sensor, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a compass.
The disk drive unit 916 includes a machine-readable medium 922 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures and instructions 924 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The instructions 924 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 904 and/or within the processor 902 during execution thereof by the computer system 900, the main memory 904 and the processor 902 also constituting machine-readable media.
While the machine-readable medium 922 is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more instructions 924 or data structures. The term “non-transitory machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any tangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present subject matter, or that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying data structures utilized by or associated with such instructions. The term “non-transitory machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, and optical and magnetic media. Specific examples of non-transitory machine-readable media include, but are not limited to, non-volatile memory, including by way of example, semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), and flash memory devices), magnetic disks such as internal hard disks and removable disks, magneto-optical disks, and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.
The instructions 924 may further be transmitted or received over a computer network 950 using a transmission medium. The instructions 924 may be transmitted using the network interface device 920 and any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols (e.g., HTTP). Examples of communication networks include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), the Internet, mobile telephone networks, Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., WiFi and WiMAX networks). The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible media to facilitate communication of such software.
As described herein, computer software products can be written in any of various suitable programming languages, such as C, C++, C#, Pascal, Fortran, Perl, Matlab (from MathWorks), SAS, SPSS, JavaScript, AJAX, and Java. The computer software product can be an independent application with data input and data display modules. Alternatively, the computer software products can be classes that can be instantiated as distributed objects. The computer software products can also be component software, for example Java Beans or Enterprise Java Beans. Much functionality described herein can be implemented in computer software, computer hardware, or a combination.
Furthermore, a computer that is running the previously mentioned computer software can be connected to a network and can interface to other computers using the network. The network can be an intranet, internet, or the Internet, among others. The network can be a wired network (for example, using copper), telephone network, packet network, an optical network (for example, using optical fiber), or a wireless network, or a combination of such networks. For example, data and other information can be passed between the computer and components (or steps) of a system using a wireless network based on a protocol, for example Wi-Fi (IEEE standard 802.11 including its substandards a, b, e, g, h, i, n, et al.). In one example, signals from the computer can be transferred, at least in part, wirelessly to components or other computers.
It is to be understood that although various components are illustrated herein as separate entities, each illustrated component represents a collection of functionalities which can be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or any combination of these. Where a component is implemented as software, it can be implemented as a standalone program, but can also be implemented in other ways, for example as part of a larger program, as a plurality of separate programs, as a kernel loadable module, as one or more device drivers or as one or more statically or dynamically linked libraries.
As will be understood by those familiar with the art, the invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. Likewise, the particular naming and division of the portions, modules, agents, managers, components, functions, procedures, actions, layers, features, attributes, methodologies and other aspects are not mandatory or significant, and the mechanisms that implement the invention or its features may have different names, divisions and/or formats.
Furthermore, as will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art, the portions, modules, agents, managers, components, functions, procedures, actions, layers, features, attributes, methodologies and other aspects of the invention can be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or any combination of the three. Of course, wherever a component of the present invention is implemented as software, the component can be implemented as a script, as a standalone program, as part of a larger program, as a plurality of separate scripts and/or programs, as a statically or dynamically linked library, as a kernel loadable module, as a device driver, and/or in every and any other way known now or in the future to those of skill in the art of computer programming. Additionally, the present invention is in no way limited to implementation in any specific programming language, or for any specific operating system or environment.
Furthermore, it will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the relevant art that where the present invention is implemented in whole or in part in software, the software components thereof can be stored on computer readable media as computer program products. Any form of computer readable medium can be used in this context, such as magnetic or optical storage media. Additionally, software portions of the present invention can be instantiated (for example as object code or executable images) within the memory of any programmable computing device.
Any of the embodiments described may be performed by computers, including general purpose computers, connected (to a network or the Internet) computers, or combinations of client-server computers and/or peer-to-peer terminals. In accordance with one deployment, the system may be provisioned as software executing on a server in the cloud wherein a client device such as mobile phones are provisioned with a client application to connect with the system over a network (e.g. the Internet). Provider interface may display content on a website, mobile application, tablet application and/or the like.
It is contemplated for embodiments of the invention to extend to individual elements and concepts described herein, independently of other concepts, ideas or system, as well as for embodiments to include combinations of elements recited anywhere in this application. Although illustrative embodiments of the invention have been described in detail herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments. As such, many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in this art. Accordingly, it is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the following claims and their equivalents. Furthermore, it is contemplated that a particular feature described either individually or as part of an embodiment can be combined with other individually described features, or parts of other embodiments, even if the other features and embodiments make no mentioned of the particular feature. This, the absence of describing combinations should not preclude the inventor from claiming rights to such combinations.
In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments of the invention, may be implemented as part of an operating system or a specific application, component, program, object, module or sequence of instructions referred to as “computer programs.” The computer programs typically comprise one or more instructions set at various times in various memory and storage devices in a computer, and that, when read and executed by one or more processors in a computer, cause the computer to perform operations necessary to execute elements involving the various aspects of the invention. Moreover, while the invention has been described in the context of fully functioning computers and computer systems, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the various embodiments of the invention are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that the invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of machine or computer-readable media used to actually effect the distribution. Examples of computer-readable media include but are not limited to recordable type media such as volatile and non-volatile memory devices, USB and other removable media, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks, (DVDs), etc.), and flash drives, among others.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident that the various modification and changes can be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than in a restrictive sense.
Accordingly, the disclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62105147 | Jan 2015 | US |
