Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1997-04-22
2001-01-09
Flynn, Nathan J. (Department: 2711)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C348S014160, C348S014160, C455S003010, C455S001000, C455S001000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06172673
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates in general to consumer-oriented multimedia technology and in particular to a method and equipment by means of which a consumer can have access to a wide supply of multimedia and equipment that can be applied in a versatile manner to various telecommunications needs.
Multimedia, or synchronised playback of simultaneous audiovisual objects, has gained wide popularity as powerful personal computers have become more and more accessible to consumers. The most widely used form of multimedia is a program which is distributed on a computer mass memory medium such as CD-ROM and which, when executed on a computer, reproduces by means of a display unit and loudspeakers data in the form of images, text and sound. Multimedia not only performs simultaneously playback but is often also interactive in nature, ie. the user can affect the program flow through his choices.
Handling of multimedia programs on the abstract level is dealt with in the ISO/LEC standard 13522 which currently comprises 5 parts and which in this document will be called the MHEG standard (Multimedia Hypermedia Information Coding Experts Group) and in which a multimedia program is defined as an entity consisting of so-called objects. Said objects are class objects in that they are categorised into object classes according to a certain syntax, and the objects in a given class comply with the specifications of that class. The object classes include e.g. links, action objects, composition objects, content objects and container objects. Certain objects may be temporally continuous and they are called streams. Furthermore, objects may be multiplexed so that a multiplexed object consists of two or more streams which are called component streams. These, in turn, may also be multiplexed and thus contain more streams.
In order to produce a multimedia presentation using objects according to the MHEG standard a special means is needed which is capable of handling, or interpreting, objects, arranging their mutual relations in the correct manner and controlling their presentation to the user. That special means is known as the MHEG engine. Usually it is realised in the form of program code and its operation at the general level is defined in the MHEG standard.
As systems are improved and become more widely used, multimedia programs will also be broadcast through radio transmission stations, satellites and/or cable TV systems in the same way as radio and television programs today. Broadcasting means electrical distribution of programs from a central place of transmission to a very large group of users in a wide geographic area who can receive transmitted programs according to their choice and who can be obliged, according to the choice of the broadcast, to pay a certain fee for the reception. Up till now, few reasonably priced multimedia terminals intended for consumer use have been proposed that could be applied for efficient reception of such transmissions.
Several efficient methods are known for unidirectional broadcast-type distribution and we will use here as an example a new digital broadcasting system called Digital Audio Broadcasting, or DAB. The DAB system specifications are found in standard ETS 300 401 drawn up by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Application of the DAB system in the transmission of multimedia objects is discussed in Finnish patent applications 952880 (“Multimediaobjektien v{umlaut over (a)}litys digitaalisessa tiedonsiirtoj{umlaut over (a)}rjestelm{umlaut over (a)}ss{umlaut over (a)}”), 955504 (“Multimediaohjelman palvelukomponenttien koodaus digitaalisessa radiokanavassa”), and 960418 (“Digitaalisten esitysobjektien salaus l{umlaut over (a)}hetyksess{umlaut over (a)} ja tallennuksessa”) which have the same applicant as this application. These applications show that a modern digital broadcasting system can be used for transmitting objects in file or stream format from a sender to a receiver. The applications, however, do not disclose a multimedia receiver proper.
A multimedia receiver should provide the technical implementation by means of which the user is able to select programs and services of his choice from a supply which can be very large. In the case of interactive multimedia the receiving equipment should also provide means for delivering messages indicating user selections to the transmitting station or another point in the transmission system where the selections have a desired effect on the contents of the program received by the user. Thus, communications related to broadcast-type multimedia has to be bidirectional at least to a limited extend (“limited” because the amount of upstream information, ie. information from user to system, is likely to be a fraction of the amount of downstream information).
From the point of view of those producing and distributing multimedia programs it is important that the user pays an agreed remuneration for the programs and services he uses and that intentional unauthorized reception is prevented in some way. In practice, programs are usually transmitted in scrambled form and the user is delivered against payment a descrambling device and/or descrambling key, the latter being a certain pseudo-random character sequence. Equipment designed for multimedia reception should make scrambling, descrambling and invoicing procedures easy to carry out. In addition, multimedia receivers conform to the same rules as other technical products aimed at the consumer market: the more versatile and useful the users consider the device and the more advantageous the selling prices, the more people will potentially buy the product.
An object of this invention is to provide a method and equipment that meet the requirements of multimedia reception and receiver as described above.
The objects of the invention are achieved by combining a terminal of a bidirectional communications network and a terminal or computer equipment of a high-capacity unidirectional transmission network and using their combined characteristics in a manner that is dynamically changing in accordance with operating conditions and requirements.
Equipment according to the invention comprising a first apparatus and a second apparatus is characterised in that it comprises in said first apparatus
storage means for the temporary storage of multimedia information to be presented, and
an agent for controlling dynamic reception and storage of multimedia information and for conveying information related to the use of the multimedia information to a communications system via said second apparatus.
The invention is also directed to an apparatus intended to be used as the first apparatus in the multimedia terminal equipment. The apparatus according to the invention is characterised in that it comprises
storage means for the temporary storage of multimedia information and
an agent for controlling dynamic reception and storage of multimedia information and for conveying information related to the use of the multimedia information to a communications system.
The invention is further directed to a method for the selective reception of multimedia presentations from a transmission system and for presenting said presentations to the user. The method according to the invention is characterised in that it comprises stages wherein
in response to a user selection it is examined whether multimedia information required by the user selection and related to a certain multimedia presentation is locally stored,
multimedia information required by the user selection and related to a certain multimedia presentation which is not locally stored is loaded from the transmission system and stored locally, and
multimedia information required by the user selection and related to a certain multimedia presentation is removed from the local storage as it is no more needed in order to present the multimedia presentation to the user.
This invention shows that a working multimedia receiver meeting the requirements mentioned above can be produced by combining a broadcast-typ
Heinonen Pekka
Ikonen Ari
Lehtinen Risto
Okkonen Harri
Flynn Nathan J.
Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd.
Perman & Green LLP
Srivastava Vivek
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