Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-11
2001-01-09
Amsbury, Wayne (Department: 2779)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C709S217000, C709S236000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06173287
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the field of multimedia and, more particularly, to a technique for accessing an item of interest to a user within a stored representation of data.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are a large number of organizations that presently have substantial amounts of audio, video, and image content in analog form. Many of these organizations are currently moving toward putting such multimedia content into digital form in order to save costs in the areas of data storage and retrieval. That is, similar to other types of data, multimedia content can be easily stored on and retrieved from relatively inexpensive digital storage devices.
The migration of multimedia content from analog form to digital form also provides an organization with the ability to store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from distributed sites. That is, an organization having a number of distributed offices can store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a centralized storage facility over a proprietary intranet computer network such as, for example, a local area network (LAN), or a public internet computer network such as, for example, the world wide web.
Furthermore, the multimedia content itself may be distributed. That is, an organization that is global in nature may have a number of distributed permanent archival storage locations where digitized multimedia content is permanently stored, or a number of distributed temporary storage locations where digitized multimedia content that is associated with work in progress is temporarily stored. Similar to above, such an organization could also store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from the distributed storage locations over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
Additionally, an organization may want other entities located outside of the organization to be able to search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content stored and maintained within the organization. For example, an organization may want to sell multimedia content to an outside entity, which may then use the purchased multimedia content for some purpose such as, for example, a news broadcast. Similar to above, the outside entity could search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a storage facility within the organization over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
However, despite the above-described benefits associated with digitized multimedia content, organizations presently have little or no means of searching within multimedia content, organizing information about multimedia content, and delivering multimedia content in a ubiquitous manner. That is, there are presently little or no means for searching inside streams of multimedia content (e.g., audio/video streams), adding meta-information to multimedia content (i.e., annotating multimedia content) for purposes of indexing within multimedia content, and providing universal access to indexed multimedia content over a variety of connection speeds and on a variety of client platforms. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a technique for organizing distributed multimedia content and for searching, browsing, and retrieving such organized distributed multimedia content in an efficient and cost-effective manner so as to overcome the above-described shortcomings of the prior art.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a technique for accessing an item of interest to a user within a stored representation of data.
The above-stated primary object, as well as other objects, features, and advantages, of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description which is to be read in conjunction with the appended drawings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, a technique for accessing an item of interest to a user within a stored representation of data is provided. The technique can be realized by having a processing device such as, for example, a database server, search through stored annotations corresponding to different items within the stored representations to locate an annotation of interest corresponding to the item of interest.
Each of the stored representations is, advantageously, a digital representation of data. An item within a stored representation can be a particular data segment, for example a spoken phrase or a visual scene, in the digital representation of data. Each of the stored annotations could be, for example, a piece of information relating to data in a particular form such as, for example, audio or video data. The annotation of interest corresponding to the item of interest can be some data within the item of interest such as, for example, a word in a spoken phrase or a person in a visual scene represented which are of interest to the user. Beneficially, the plurality of stored annotations are stored in an index database and the plurality of stored representations are stored in a media database.
Each annotation has an associated search identifier such as, for example, an object identification number. Each annotation of interest also has an associated location identifier which identifies the location of the corresponding item of interest. The location identifier could be, for example, a time at which the annotation of interest occurs within the digital representation of the audio or video data.
Once the annotation of interest has been found, and hence the associated search identifier, the processing device searches stored search identifiers to locate the associated search identifier and an address identifier corresponding to a location of the stored representation which includes the item of interest. The address identifier can be, for example, an URL identifying the location of a digital representation within a database. Thus, the address identifier corresponding to a location of the stored representation having the item of interest can be, for example, the URL identifying the location of the particular digital representation of audio or video data within the media database. The plurality of stored search identifiers can be stored, for example, in a meta database.
Once the address identifier has been found, the processing device accesses the item of interest at the location of interest using the address identifier and the location identifier. For example, the processing device can use the address identifier and the location identifier in an extended URL format to access the item of interest at the location of interest within the particular digital representation including the item of interest.
In one aspect of the present invention, the item of interest is one of a plurality of items within the particular one of the stored representations. That is, the item of interest can be, for example, one of several items within the particular digital representation of audio or video data. Regardless, the processing device accesses the item of interest before accessing any other item within the particular one of the plurality of stored representations.
In another aspect of the present invention, the search identifier is preferably identified in conjunction with the locating of the annotation of interest. That is, the search identifier can be, for example, stored with, or referenced to, the annotation of interest. Similarly, the location identifier can be identified in conjunction with the locating of the annotation of interest. Alternatively, the location identifier can be identified in conjunction with the locating of the search identifier. That is, the location identifier can be, for example, stored with, or referenced to, the search identifier.
In a further aspect of the present invention, the annotation of interest is preferably stored with the stored annotations. The search identifier and the location identifier can be stored with the annotation of interest in a database.
In a still further aspect
de Vries Arjen Paul
Dufaux Frederic
Eberman Brian S.
Kovalcin David E.
Sokolov Michael
Amsbury Wayne
Digital Equipment Corporation
Havan Thu-Thao
Hunton & Williams
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