Claims
- 1. A method of scalably presenting a collection of media objects, comprising:
selecting a group of media objects from the collection based upon media object relevance to one or more data structures of a selected media file of indexed, temporally-ordered data structures; and transmitting to a client one or more of the selected media file and the media objects of the selected group for contemporaneous presentation at a selected summarization level.
- 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the summarization level based upon one or more resource constraints.
- 3. The method of claim 2, wherein a resource constraint corresponds to a communication channel resource constraint or a client resource constraint.
- 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the communication channel resource constraint corresponds to one or more of a bandwidth constraint, a transmission constraint, and a client reception constraint.
- 5. The method of claim 3, wherein the client resource constraint corresponds to a processing constraint or a display constraint, or both.
- 6. The method of claim 3, wherein the client resource constraint corresponds to a received client preference indication.
- 7. The method of claim 1, wherein media object relevance corresponds to browsable links between media objects of the selected group and one or more data structures of the selected media file.
- 8. The method of claim 7, wherein transmitting at a lowest summarization level comprises transmitting all of the data structures of the selected media file in sequence and transmitting each media object of the selected group in timed relationship with a respective linked data structure of the selected media file.
- 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the selected media file comprises a sequence of full-motion video frames and a corresponding synchronized audio sequence, and transmitting at the lowest summarization level comprises synchronously transmitting the full-motion video frames and the audio sequence compressed to a high quality level.
- 10. The method of claim 8, wherein transmitting at a second summarization level comprises transmitting in sequence a first subset of the data structures of the selected media file and transmitting each media object of the selected group in timed relationship with the subset of data structures.
- 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the selected media file comprises a sequence of full-motion video frames and a corresponding synchronized audio sequence, and transmitting at the second summarization level comprises synchronously transmitting key sequences of full-motion video frames and the audio sequence compressed to an intermediate audio quality level.
- 12. The method of claim 10, wherein transmitting at a third summarization level comprises transmitting in sequence a second subset of data structures of the selected media file smaller than the first subset and transmitting graphical representations of each media object of the selected group in timed relationship with the second subset of data structures.
- 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the selected media file comprises a sequence of full-motion video frames and a corresponding synchronized audio sequence, and transmitting at the third summarization level comprises synchronously transmitting full-motion video key frames and the audio sequence compressed to a low audio quality level.
- 14. The method of claim 12, wherein transmitting at a fourth summarization level comprises transmitting a single data structure representative of the selected media file.
- 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the selected media file comprises a sequence of full-motion video frames and a corresponding synchronized audio sequence, and transmitting at the fourth summarization level comprises synchronously transmitting a single full-motion video key frame and one or more key sentences representative of the audio sequence and compressed to a low audio quality level.
- 16. The method of claim 1, wherein media object relevance corresponds to a selected context similarity between media objects and the one or more data structures of the selected media file.
- 17. The method of claim 16, wherein context similarity corresponds to one or more of color similarity, motion activity similarity, texture content similarity, audio similarity, data similarity, name similarity, inclusion of similar objects, inclusion of similar persons or similar places.
- 18. The method of claim 16, wherein transmitting at a lowest summarization level comprises transmitting all of the data structures of the selected media file in sequence and transmitting each media object of the selected group.
- 19. The method of claim 18, wherein transmitting at a second summarization level comprises transmitting a first subset of the data structures of the selected media file in sequence and transmitting each media object of the selected group.
- 20. The method of claim 19, wherein transmitting at a third summarization level comprises transmitting in sequence a second subset of data structures of the selected media file smaller than the first subset and transmitting graphical representations of each media object of the selected group.
- 21. The method of claim 20, wherein transmitting at a fourth summarization level comprises transmitting a single data structure representative of the selected media file.
- 22. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the summarization level based upon a time constraint.
- 23. The method of claim 22, wherein the selected media file comprises a sequence of full-motion video frames and transmitting the selected media file comprises transmitting representative portions of the selected media file selected to accommodate the time constraint.
- 24. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the summarization level based upon a time constraint and a resource constraint.
- 25. A system for presenting a collection of media objects, comprising a media manager operable to:
select a group of media objects from the collection based upon media object relevance to one or more data structures of a selected media file of indexed, temporally-ordered data structures; and transmit to a client one or more of the selected media file and the media objects of the selected group for contemporaneous presentation at a selected summarization level.
- 26. The system of claim 25, wherein media object relevance corresponds to browsable links between media objects of the selected group.
- 27. The system of claim 25, wherein media object relevance corresponds to a selected context similarity between media objects and the one or more data structures of the selected media file.
- 28. A method of scalably presenting a collection of media objects, comprising:
grouping media objects in the collection into multiple clusters based upon one or more media object relevance criteria; arranging the media object clusters into a hierarchy of two or more levels; and transmitting a selected cluster to a client for contemporaneous presentation at a selected summarization level.
- 29. A system for scalably presenting a collection of media objects, comprising a media manager operable to:
group media objects in the collection into multiple clusters based upon one or more media object relevance criteria; arrange the media object clusters into a hierarchy of two or more levels; and transmit a selected cluster to a client for contemporaneous presentation at a selected summarization level.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is related to the following applications, each of which is incorporated herein by reference: U.S. application Ser. No. 10/117,033, filed Apr. 5, 2002, by Pere Obrador, and entitled “Media Object Management;” and U.S. application Ser. No. 10/207,279, filed Sep. 29, 2002, by Pere Obrador, and entitled “Presenting a Collection of Media Objects.”