Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Graphic manipulation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-28
2001-11-20
Bayerl, Raymond J. (Department: 2173)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Graphic manipulation
C345S647000, C345S215000, C707S793000, C348S580000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06320598
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to the production, transformation, modification, resequencing, and distribution of time-based media signals, such as video and audio signals, and more particularly to a media processing system that is capable of providing reconfigurable, adaptive media productions that can accept, adapt, and/or be adapted to new media signals provided by a user, without requiring high levels of skill on the user's part. These processes are directed to, but not limited to, the motion picture, television, music, audio, and on-line content industries.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Today's most advanced media processing systems are mechanical, rather than computational, devices. They directly manipulate extents of temporal media in the same manner as the first film editing systems at the dawn of the century, and their users are still required to think that way. In order to understand how even the most advanced media editing systems operate, one can imagine a virtual robot arm manipulating media according to temporal entrance and exit points. A different model of the content being operated upon, and of the operations being performed, could result in different methods of media production and different kinds of media productions. Two historical analogies are illustrative in this connection. The first relates to the invention of manufactured interchangeable parts in the process of gun manufacture in the later part of the 18th century. Before the invention of interchangeable parts, gun manufacture suffered from a lack of standardization and reusability of components. Every part was a unique result of handicraft, rather than a standardized manufactured component. The invention of manufactured interchangeable parts transformed gun production from a pre-industrial to an industrial mode of production. In the later part of the twentieth century, media production methods have yet to achieve the stage of industrialization reached by gun manufacture at the end of the eighteenth century. The current invention aims to alter that situation.
In order for media to be produced by means of the manufacture of interchangeable parts, purely mechanical modes of production are insufficient. Computational media production methods are required, in a manner analogous to the invention in the 1980's of computational production methods in software design which enabled the simple definition, creation, and reuse of software components.
The ability to quickly, simply and iteratively produce new media content is of special interest in contexts where movie-making has been historically hampered by lack of skill and resources. In particular, home consumer production of movie content suffers from the lack of the following three capabilities which are needed to meet these objectives:
easy-to-use yet powerful composition tools
access to media content which cannot be produced in the home
tools for producing high-quality soundtracks (including multitrack music, dialogue, narration, and sound effects)
Another limitation associated with current media processing systems is the fact that they are poorly suited for the re-use of pre-existing media content. This is especially the case in situations in which the cost and/or difficulty of creating new media content exceed the cost and/or difficulty of reusing existing media content. For consumers wishing to participate in media productions, access to existing media is of paramount importance given their lack of production skill, financial resources, and media assets. Currently, there is no mechanism by which pre-existing recordings can be efficiently retrieved and combined to present the desired effect.
In summary, there is a need for a time-based media processing system which is capable of providing high-quality, adaptive media productions without requiring a significant level of skill on the part of the user, and is therefore suited for use by the average consumer. The objective of the invention is to enable new efficiencies, methods, and forms in the production and distribution of media content. The invention also aims to satisfy a need for a media-processing system which facilitates the re-use of media content, and indirectly the labor and expertise that created it.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In pursuit of these objectives, the present invention embodies a new paradigm for computational media processing which is comprised of two fundamental components:
Content Representation
(automatically, semi-automatically, and manually generated descriptive data that represent the content of media signals)
Functional Dependency
(functional relationships that operate on content representations and media signals to compute new media content)
The invention combines these two techniques to create time-based media processing systems, which manipulate representations of media content in order to compute new media content. The invention is intended to support a paradigm shift from the direct manipulation of simple temporal representations of media (frames, timecodes, etc.), to the interactive computation of new media from higher level representations of media content and functional dependencies among them. This paradigm of media processing and composition enables the production of traditional media (e.g., movies, television programs, music videos, etc.) to be orders of magnitude faster than current methods. As such, uses of the invention may have fundamental consequences for the current industrial processes of media production, distribution, and reuse. By means of content representation and functional dependency, the current invention creates a production process for computational media components which can determine what they contain, and how they can be processed, adapted, and reused.
In accordance with the present invention, a media signal is processed in a media parser to obtain descriptive representations of its contents. Each content representation is data that provides information about the media signal, and is functionally dependent on the media signal. Depending upon the particular data type of the content representation, different kinds of information can be obtained about the media, and different types of operations can be performed on this information and the media it is functionally dependent upon. Content representations also support inheritance of behavior through directed graph structures (e.g., general to specific) and are composable into new content representations. For example, an audio signal can be parsed to identify its pitch. Higher order parsing can be performed on this content representation to obtain additional information about the media signal, such as its prosody (i.e., its pitch pattern), or in the case of music, its chord structures.
Media parsers may operate automatically, semi-automatically, or manually. Automatic media parsers require no human input in order to produce their content representations from their input media signals. Semi-automatic and manual media parsers require human input or manual annotation to produce their content representations.
The information that is obtained from the content representation of a media signal is fed to a media producer which defines a functional relationship between input media signals and content representations, to produce the new media production. For example, the rate of events of a particular song might be used to control the rate at which a video signal is played, so that events in the video are synchronized with events in the song. Alternatively, a soundtrack can be accelerated, decelerated and/or modified to fit it to a video sequence. In another example, the functional relationship can be used to substitute one item of media for another. For instance, original sounds in a soundtrack for a video signal can be replaced by a new set of sounds having similar properties, e.g. durations, which correspond to those of the original sounds. In another example, events in a video or audio signal can be detected and used to modify one or both media signals in a particular mann
Davis Marc
Levitt David
Bayerl Raymond J.
Burns Doane Swecker & Mathis L.L.P.
Interval Research Corporation
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