1540results about "Disc-shaped record carriers" patented technology

A video data recordable having integrated channel guides allowing a user to control recording and storage of television signals into personal channels for later playback and viewing. In the described embodiment, the user may specify criteria for recording of shows from an input source such as a broadcast signal and shows are then selected based on the user specified criteria and recorded for later playback. Storage of the shows may be organized into personal channels in order to facilitate later playback, e.g., the user may specify a channel of action movies, a channel of nature programming, a channel for sports, etc. The shows to be recorded may also have a predefined format which may be used to ease playback of recorded programming by allowing the user to easily locate and playback sections of programming of interest.

A method for delivery and presentation of content-relevant information associated with frames in an AV program enables TV viewers to retrieve information on the contents (for example, objects, items, concepts and the like) associated with a frame or a set of frames (video segments) when they watch TV or video programs. The information relevant to frame(s) is delivered to a STB or DVR by third-party service providers through back channels such as the Internet if the information of how to accurately access the frames pointed by STB users are delivered to the service providers, and the content-relevant information may be presented in the form of a GUI for the TV viewer.

Provided is a system for identifying vehicles of traffic violators, the system having elements that include: a video camera for providing, in real-time, a video signal that represents plural sequential video image frames (either perceptually continuous video, such as 30 frames per second, or non-perceptually continuous video, such as 1-2 fps); a traffic violation detector (e.g., a radar gun, an in-ground loop, a pair of self-powered wireless transponders or transmitters, a camera-based speed detection system, or any other speed sensor) that provides a trigger signal (e.g., based on vehicle speed and detection of the state of a traffic signal); a video recorder that receives the video signal provided by the camera and records the video signal in a buffer until receipt of a trigger signal, at which point at least a portion of the video signal stored in the buffer is preserved for recording and direct real-time storage of the video signal to a hard drive, or other high-capacity storage medium, commences. As a result, the video signal is preserved during a pre-programmable sliding (or rolling) time interval prior to provision of the trigger signal.

Improved techniques for automatic (or dynamic) updating (or maintaining) of playlists for a media system that stores and plays media content for a user of the media system. The automatic update to playlists can occur when additional media content is added to or removed from the media system. The automatic update to playlists can also occur when previously stored media content is otherwise altered.

A multimedia program bookmarking system provides a bookmark function that allows the user to bookmark a program where he left off. The invention records the frame of the program where the user stopped when the user commands the system to do so. Alternatively, the invention automatically bookmarks the program for the user if the user exits viewing the program. The invention displays an indicator indicating that a bookmark has been saved and the user can, at any time, access his bookmark and continue playback of the program from where he left off. Bookmarks within a single program can be set for different users. Remote controls are encoded for a specific user in a household, allowing each person in the household to have a personal remote control and therefore, personal bookmarks. The invention notes that a set of bookmarks belongs to a certain encoded remote control. The user can alternatively select a specific set of bookmarks manually, through a menu. The system loads the associated bookmark information for the user and any bookmarks that do not have associated programs stored on the storage device are ignored and deleted, otherwise programs are played backed starting from the associated bookmarks, if they exist. Multiple bookmarks for a program are transparent to the user because the remote control that the user uses tells the system to only display and activate that particular user's bookmarks.

Provided is an apparatus for identifying license plates, and includes camera means for generating a video signal corresponding to an observed scene, the camera means being mounted in a mobile vehicle and oriented so as to observe license plates of other vehicles. Processing means processes the video signal so as to obtain textual representations of vehicle license plate numbers in the video signal, and storage means stores a list of target vehicle license plate numbers. Comparison means compares the textual representations of vehicle license plate numbers in the video signal against the list of target vehicle license plate numbers to determine if there is a match, and then output means notifies a user of the match.

Personal video recorders (PVRs) contain many desirable features, including the ability to skip undesirable portions of a recorded broadcast program. Disclosed is a method and system for a PVR user to share with other users tags identifying desirable program portions or segments (“Hot-Spots”) and undesirable segments (“Cold-Spots”). Other users are able to either automatically or manually to adjust the replay of the program based on the tags.

A system for modifying commercials for multi-speed playback detects when a commercial break begins in a broadcast program content stream. If the viewer selects fast-forward playback mode during the commercial break, then the system selects the appropriate alternate content to be played to the viewer. The alternate content can include images, video, and / or audio content. The system is provided configuration information by the service provider or broadcaster to identify what alternate content will be played, when it will be played and any additional processing tasks required. A service provider can charge an advertiser or content provider a fee based on viewership of the alternate content. When the system detects that the commercial break has ended, it returns the viewer back to the program material.

A system for on-line user-interactive multimedia based point-of-preview. The system provides for a network web site and accompanying software and hardware for allowing users to access the web site over a network such as the internet via a computer. The user is uniquely identified to the web site server through an identification name or number. The hardware associated with the web site includes storage of discrete increments of pre-selected portions of music products for user selection and preview. After user selection, a programmable data processor selects the particular pre-recorded music product from data storage and then transmits that chosen music product over the network to the user for preview. Subscriber selection and profile data (i.e. demographic information) can optionally be collected and stored to develop market research data. Since the system provides for multiple embodiments, the system contemplates previewing of audio programs such as music on compact discs, video programs such as movies and text from books and other written documents. Furthermore, it is contemplated that the network web site can be accessed from a publicly accessible kiosk, available, e.g. at a retail store location, or from a desk top computer.

A multimedia visual progress indication system that provides a trick play bar that is overlaid onto the program material or displayed on a dedicated display. A cache bar inside of the trick play bar indicates the length of a recording session or the length of stored program material and expands to the right when material is being recorded. Every half hour (or selected increment), the cache bar slides to the left. Time marks are displayed inside the trick play bar giving the user a visual reference point from which to judge the current time and visual time reference points. The time marks are in any increment of time needed. The total length of the stored program material or next time or counter increment in the recording cycle is displayed on the right hand end of the trick play bar. A position indicator moves within the trick play bar and tells the user visually where his current position is within the program material. A slider moves along the trick play bar and on top of the cache bar and is linked to the position indicator and can be moved anywhere within the cache bar by the user. The slider displays the numeric time or counter mark of the current position. A mode indicator is positioned below the slider and follows the slider's movement and displays whether the user is in play, record, pause, slow play, fast play, fast forward (1×, 2×, and 3×), slow reverse play, slow reverse, and fast reverse (1×, 2×, and 3×) modes. The 1×, 2×, and 3× speeds are adjustable by the system to be any variable desired (e.g., 2×, 16×, and 32×). The trick play bar and its associated components are displayed for a predetermined time period when overlaid onto the program material.

A media player and a method for operating a media player are disclosed. A media program is able to substantially immediately begin playing after a media play selection has been made. Through intelligent operation, the media program is able to start playing even before the media program has been substantially or completely loaded from disk storage into semiconductor memory (i.e., cache memory). Additionally, the media program can be loaded into semiconductor memory through use of a background process without disturbing the playing of the media program. Further, if desired, the disk storage is able to be aggressively “powered off” when not being accessed, thereby enhancing battery life when being battery-powered.

An interactive television system is provided in which a program listings grid is displayed for the user. The user can scroll in the backwards direction to view information on programs that have been recorded and certain video-on-demand content. Icons or other visual indicators may be provided on program listings screens to indicate the status of the programs. The status information may include an indication of whether programs are available for recording, have been recorded, are being recorded, or will be recorded, or whether a given program is available for advance viewing through the interactive television system's video-on-demand service. Programs can be recorded automatically on user equipment or on network-based equipment. A program may be automatically recorded when a user sets a reminder for the program but fails to watch the program or when a given program is determined to satisfy the user's television viewing preferences.

A transport control interface may be provided by an interactive television program guide application to provide information, control or both for live and recorded video programming. The transport control interface may indicate to the user the time duration of a live or recorded program and any time segments of the program that have been recorded. The transport control interface may automatically adjust the start and end time shown to accommodate various factors such as continuous viewing on a particular channel, multiple recorded segments, buffer size, etc. Various information associated with the live or recorded video programming may be displayed in the transport control interface.

Provided are systems and techniques for monitoring events on a transportation vehicle, in which camera means provides in real time a video signal that corresponds to an observed live-motion scene, is mounted in a vehicle at a first location and is oriented so as to detect scenes within the vehicle. Trigger means, positioned at a second location in the vehicle, provides a trigger signal to begin recording of the video signal. Video recording means mounted at a third location on the vehicle receives the video signal and records the video signal in response to the trigger signal. Buffer means receives and stores the video signal so as to preserve the video signal during a sliding time interval. The first location, second location and third location are all different, and in response to provision of the trigger signal at least a portion of the video signal stored in the buffer means is preserved for recording by the video recording means.

Provided are systems and techniques for recording video in a mobile environment, in which camera means mounted at a first location in a vehicle generates a video signal based upon an observed scene. Video recording means mounted at a second location in the vehicle inputs and records the video signal on a tangible medium. General-purpose computing means, mounted at a third location in the vehicle and running a general operating system and user-installed application programs, communicates with the video recording means, is loaded with software to provide a user interface to control recording and playback by the video recording means, and includes means for wireless communication with a central base station.

Fast metadata indexing and delivery for broadcast audio-visual (AV) programs by using template, segment-mark and bookmark on the visual spatio-temporal pattern of an AV program during indexing. The broadcasting time carried on a broadcast transport stream is used as a locator allowing direct access to a specific temporal position of a recorded AV program.

A media player and a method for operating a media player are disclosed. A media program is able to substantially immediately begin playing after a media play selection has been made. Through intelligent operation, the media program is able to start playing even before the media program has been substantially or completely loaded from disk storage into semiconductor memory (i.e., cache memory). Additionally, the media program can be loaded into semiconductor memory through use of a background process without disturbing the playing of the media program. Further, if desired, the disk storage is able to be aggressively “powered off” when not being accessed, thereby enhancing battery life when being battery-powered.

Techniques (method, apparatus, system) are provided for efficiently delivering segmentation information of broadcast or other delivered programs to DVRs and the like associated with a conventional type program guide (for example, ATSC-PSIP or DVB-SI EPGs) for efficient random accessing to segments of a program which may be recorded in DVRs using the delivered segmentation information. The segmentation information may include segment titles, temporal start positions and durations of the segments of broadcast programs. Additionally, an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) is generated for browsing based on received segmentation information using thumbnail images from specific positions of a video file which can be generated either by hardware (H / W) or software (S / W) or firmware (F / W), or a combination thereof.

A method and system are provided for tagging, indexing, searching, retrieving, manipulating, and editing video images on a wide area network such as the Internet. A first set of methods is provided for enabling users to add bookmarks to multimedia files, such as movies, and audio files, such as music. The multimedia bookmark facilitates the searching of portions or segments of multimedia files, particularly when used in conjunction with a search engine. Additional methods are provided that reformat a video image for use on a variety of devices that have a wide range of resolutions by selecting some material (in the case of smaller resolutions) or more material (in the case of larger resolutions) from the same multimedia file. Still more methods are provided for interrogating images that contain textual information (in graphical form) so that the text may be copied to a tag or bookmark that can itself be indexed and searched to facilitate later retrieval via a search engine.

A system and method for providing automated generation of program groups used in shuffled playback. The playback system acquires "content information" concerning programs on subject media, and generates shuffled playback groups by comparing the content information to user entered "desired-group information". In one illustrative embodiment the content information is included on the media themselves. In a second illustrative embodiment, the content information is included in a database.

In an information recording medium for recording and reproducing data thereon on a sector-by-sector basis, the recorded data being managed as at least one file by using a file structure, the file structure includes unused space management information for identifying a used region and an unused region. At least one defective region is registered as an unused region in the unused space management information, the at least one defective region being a region on the information recording medium which is incapable of proper reproduction of the recorded data.

A disk drive is disclosed servo written from spiral tracks by generating a time-stamped sync mark detect signal processed by timing recovery firmware. A plurality of spiral tracks are written to the disk, wherein each spiral track comprises a high frequency signal interrupted at a predetermined interval by a sync mark. The head internal to the disk drive is used to read the spiral tracks, and a time-stamped sync mark detect signal is generated when one of the sync marks is detected. The time-stamped sync mark detect signal represents a time when the sync mark was detected relative to a servo write clock. A difference between the time-stamped sync mark detect signal and an expected time is computed in firmware to generate a coarse timing recovery measurement used to synchronize the servo write clock. The servo write clock and the head internal to the disk drive are used to write product servo sectors along a substantially circular target path.

A method is disclosed for ordering error recovery steps of an error recovery procedure executed by a disk drive, wherein each error recovery step having an execution time. The disk drive comprises a disk having a plurality of tracks, wherein each track comprises a plurality of data sectors. A plurality of step success counters are initialized, wherein each counter corresponds to one of the error recovery steps. A plurality of the error recovery steps are executed, wherein if an error recovery step successfully recovers one of the data sectors the corresponding step success counter is incremented. A step priority value is computed for each error recovery step in response to the step success counter and execution time for each step. The error recovery steps are then ordered in response to the step priority values.

A disk drive includes a disk defining a multiplicity of sectors. A method of operating the disk drive includes a step of providing a firmware-controlled state machine which can be in any of a plurality of states including an off-line in-progress state. While the state machine is in the off-line in progress state, the drive performs a firmware-controlled scan of the multiplicity of sectors. While performing the firmware-controlled scan, the drive identifies and repairs a marginal sector.

Provided is a mobile event-recording device that includes distributed elements within, attached to or otherwise mounted to a mobile vehicle, with the principal elements being: a first camera providing a real-time video signal that corresponds to an observed outboard live-motion scene; and a digital video recorder receiving the video signal provided by the camera and recording the video signal in response to a trigger signal (e.g., an activation switch for a light bar or siren, an air bag sensor signal indicating air bag deployment, or depression of an emergency button or a dedicated recording activation switch). The video recorder uses a buffer to receive and store the video signal so as to preserve the video signal during a programmable sliding (or rolling) time interval prior to the triggering event. Thus, in response to provision of the trigger signal, at least a portion of the video signal stored in the buffer is preserved for recording by the video recorder on a hard disk (or other long-term storage medium) and thereafter, the video recorder records directly on the hard disk (or other long-term storage medium).

A disk drive is disclosed wherein if multiple retries beyond a threshold are required to recover a data sector during a normal read operation, the data sector is added to a marginal sector list. During an off-line scan, the data sectors in the marginal sector list are verified. If the verification of a data sector fails, the data sector is relocated.

A method and apparatus for dynamic quality adjustment based on changing streaming constraints is provided. According to one aspect of the present invention, a video stream is sent to a client according to a set of streaming constraints. At least a subset of the video information in the video stream is sent from a first source. Next, a signal is received indicating a relaxation of streaming constraints corresponding to the video stream. In one embodiment, the signal is a freeze frame signal. In another embodiment, the signal is a slow motion signal. In response to the signal, a set of improved quality video information from a second source is accessed and sent to the client. According to one embodiment, the set of improved quality video information comprises a still image. According to another embodiment, the set of improved quality video information comprises a set of preprocessed video information ready to be streamed. As a result of the techniques described herein, an improved quality visual image is available for presentation on the client and, consequently, when a viewer requests a presentation rate that reduces the streaming constraints on a video streaming service, the improved quality video information may be sent using the freed-up portion of the bandwidth previously allocated to the client.

Methods for fast generating spatially reduced-size images directly from compressed video streams supporting the coding of interlaced frames through transform coding and motion compensation. A sequence of reduced-size images are rapidly generated from compressed video streams by efficiently combining the steps of inverse transform, down-sampling and construction of each field image. The construction of reduced-size field images also allows the efficient motion compensation. The fast generation of reduced-size images is applicable to a variety of low-cost applications such as video browsing, video summary, fast thumbnail playback and video indexing.

A method and system are provided for tagging, indexing, searching, retrieving, manipulating, and editing video images on a wide area network such as the Internet. A first set of methods is provided for enabling users to add bookmarks to multimedia files, such as movies, and audio files, such as music. The multimedia bookmark facilitates the searching of portions or segments of multimedia files, particularly when used in conjunction with a search engine. Additional methods are provided that reformat a video image for use on a variety of devices that have a wide range of resolutions by selecting some material (in the case of smaller resolutions) or more material (in the case of larger resolutions) from the same multimedia file. Still more methods are provided for interrogating images that contain textual information (in graphical form) so that the text may be copied to a tag or bookmark that can itself be indexed and searched to facilitate later retrieval via a search engine.

In a data processing apparatus used for a multi-channel digital television broadcasting system, coded streams are recorded on a recording medium in a high efficiency, and can be random-accessed in a high speed. The data processing apparatus is arranged by segmenting means for segmenting the entered coded stream with respect to a predetermined time unit, and first forming means for forming a time unit map indicative of an address of data every time unit of the coded stream which is segmented by the segmenting means.