Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-07
2002-08-27
Tran, Thai (Department: 2615)
Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing
Local trick play processing
With randomly accessible medium
C386S349000, C386S349000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06442335
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the generation of audio signals during play of a software (e.g., motion picture) carrier, and more particularly to a technique by which multiple dialog languages may be recorded on separate audio tracks of the same carrier without requiring a full track for each language version.
A key to understanding the present invention is that there are sections of many video programs in which no dialog occurs. In the absence of dialog, there is no reason to provide a language-specific track. During any “no-dialog” sequence, all that are available, if even that, are music and effects. Thus a music and effects (M&E) track is really all that is necessary—for all language versions—during much of the total running time of a motion picture. In fact, an M&E track is all that is required in the usual case for far more than half the running time. Obviously, a Shakespearean movie will have more dialog, and hence more language-specific dialog, than an action-adventure movie. Nevertheless, most present-day releases have far more non-dialog M&E than they do the spoken word.
Before summarizing the invention, it is to be appreciated that the present invention contemplates data-efficient storage and recovery of various audio versions, and not just different language movie soundtracks. For example, multiple soundtracks could include teaching and testing versions of the same material, and there could perhaps be teaching and testing versions for multiple levels of expertise. The multiple soundtracks that would be provided in such a case might even have some dialog in common,,not only M&E. Thus, it is to be understood that the object of the invention is to provide a plurality of audio tracks synchronized with a motion picture, and not necessarily audio tracks which differ only in terms of language. It is also to be understood that the invention is not limited to a particular medium, and it is applicable to tape carriers and all digital storage media, not just the optical disks of the illustrative embodiment of the invention. Nor is the invention limited only to the distribution of motion pictures. For example, in an extreme case, the invention is applicable to the distribution of a library of still pictures, in which there is no “motion” at all. The term “audio tracks” thus embraces much more than audio tracks with different dialog languages, the term “software publisher” thus embraces much more than a motion picture company, and the term “carrier” embraces much more than a digitally encoded optical disk.
The illustrative embodiment of the invention is an optical disk which includes multiple audio tracks synchronized with a motion picture track. At least one of the audio tracks is a mixing master or a switching master. A mixing master is a track which includes M&E, but for the most part no dialog. A switching master is a track which includes M&E, together with dialog in a particular language. Other tracks on the disks are specific to respective languages and include material that is language specific. Where no language-specific material is required for a particular audio track, nothing is recorded so that there is no wasted “real estate,” as will be described below. Consider the case of a mixing master M&E track, and three language-specific audio tracks in English, Spanish and French. For a two-hour movie, the M&E track might have recorded close to two hours of audio. (Where there is no sound at all, there is no need to store any data, once again in order to avoid wasting any storage capacity.) The three, language-specific tracks have dialog recorded in them, but no music and no effects—and each of the three tracks has data recorded in it only where it is necessary for dialog. The user selects one of the three tracks, the French track, for example, if he wants to hear the French version of the movie. The mixing master audio track and the French audio track are the only ones which are read by the player, and the digital information recorded in the two tracks is mixed, so that the net result is a conventional soundtrack, in French. To play the Spanish version of the same movie, the user would simply select the Spanish-soundtrack instead of the French.
A switching master, on the other hand, would typically include dialog. Consider a motion picture which is originally shot with the actors speaking English. The switching master audio track would include the original motion picture soundtrack. To play the English version of the release, the switching master audio track would be played by, itself from beginning to end. But suppose that it is desired to play the French version of the motion picture. In this case, the French audio track would include not only French dialog, but French dialog together with music and effects. All that is necessary to derive the French version of the motion picture is to play the switching master audio track most of the time, but to switch from it to the French audio track—and to play the French audio track alone—where there is French dialog. The major difference between using mixing and switching masters is that the former is mixed with one of the language-specific tracks so that M&E can be (although does not necessarily have to be) recorded only on the master track, while in a switching system only one track is played at any given time so that M&E has to be recorded on the language-specific tracks. It is also possible to provide both schemes on the same disk, i.e., to provide both kinds of master tracks, with some of the language-specific tracks being used with the mixing master, and some being used with the switching master.
The disk includes within its lead-in section a series of codes which identify whether each audio track on the disk is a mixing master, a switching master, a track to be mixed with a mixing master, or a track to be switched with a switching master. There are a maximum of 16 audio tracks which may be provided. However, there are many more languages than this number. It is necessary to identify which languages are available on the disk so that the user can control his player to generate a sound-track in the desired language. For this reason, the lead-in section of the disk identifies which languages are available on the disk. In the illustrative embodiment of the invention, the first audio track is an M&E track, a mixing master or a switching master. If there are a total of N audio tracks, where N is 16 or less, then there may be N−1 language-specific audio tracks. (There would be N−2 language-specific tracks if both mixing and switching masters are provided.) If the first track is a mixing master, then there can be at most N−1 language-specific versions since dialog is available only starting with the second track. (Theoretically, if the first track is a switching master and it contains dialog in the original language, then this track can be played alone from beginning to end and there are N language versions available.) If a player determines from an analysis of the lead-in section of the disk that the first audio track is a mixing master and the fourth audio track contains dialog in French, and it is this fourth track that is to be mixed with the mixing master, then all that is required for generation of a French soundtrack is to mix the first and fourth soundtracks. This is not to say that there will always be data in these tracks. On the contrary, the underlying assumption of the invention is that the French-specific audio track will, more often than not, contain no data.
Information recorded on the software carrier is recorded in separately identifiable blocks. This is true for both video and all of the synchronized audio. Each block contains indicia of which audio tracks in the block represent a signal. Thus, a particular block may contain switching master information, as well as information in a language-specific track which is to be switched with the switching master. When the player determines at the start of the reading of a block that the block contains data in a langua
Cookson Christopher J.
Lieberfarb Warren N.
Ostrover Lewis S.
Gottlieb Rackman & Reisman P.C.
Time Warner Entertainment Co. L.P.
Tran Thai
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