107 results about "Digital entertainment" patented technology

Priority-based content retrieval mechanisms for digital entertainment devices are provided. In various embodiments, the download prioritizations may be interrupt-based, sequence-based, or a combination of the two. In interrupt-based prioritizations, a higher priority download request will interrupt a lower-priority download that is already in progress. In sequence-based prioritizations, a plurality of file download requests may be ordered in a download queue depending on the priority of the request, with higher priority requests being positioned towards the top of the queue and lower priority requests being positioned towards the bottom of the queue.

Audio playback is used to enhance the control of Personal Digital Entertainment devices. Embodiments of the present invention provide audio message files associated with the activation of a control or provide other device status messaging Audio messages are also provided in file sets that are user selectable to give the user a choice of ‘themes’.

A system and device is disclosed that employs a global interactive program guide to receive, access, manage, and view digital entertainment services such as live television, television on demand, and pre-recorded video and audio programming from one on more content sources, via an internet-enabled device, anywhere in the world. As disclosed, the global interactive program guide provides a user with metadata that describes available content and enables the user to access desired content on an a la carte basis and arrange the presentation of that content in any way or order desired. The system of the instant invention can alternatively be practiced with any mobile communications device that is accessible via the internet, cell phone communications or other communications mode. Changes made to content availability are instantly synchronized through the entire system and content redundancy is obtained when available.

A cellular telephone includes an internally integrated digital entertainment module. The telephone includes a transceiver unit and a headset which is connected to the transceiver unit by wired or wireless link. The entertainment module includes an interchangeable ROM and / or expansion RAM for storing music or other audio signals for playback through the telephone's headset. Music or other audio signals in digitized form is stored in the interchangeable ROM or is loaded into the expansion RAM from a CD player, computer, or other source of digitized audio signals. Under control of the cellular telephone's microprocessor, the digitally stored audio signal is played back through the telephone's headset. The entertainment module may be located in the transceiver unit, a removable battery pack, or in a separate adapter.

An Internet-enabled means of distributing entertainment programming with embedded advertising in which the entertainment programming is customized according to consumers' stated preferences and the advertising is customized according to consumer demographics and also according to consumers' stated preferences. A computing system usable to create and distribute personalized entertainment and advertising content comprising computer hosts having software agents acting to administer a master digital library as well as end users' digital libraries, establish advertising bookings and insert advertising content, establish schedules of digital content for distribution to end users, identify digital content listed on a schedule but missing from the end user's digital library, distribute across a communications network digital content to end users, and decrypt and play or display the digital entertainment and advertising content. A communications network for exchanging information and data among said computer hosts and agents.

The present invention is directed to an open business platform that provides an end-to-end solution for managing, distributing, and / or retailing digital media assets from various content suppliers. In one or more embodiments, the present invention provides an integrated system that permits media content suppliers to deposit their media assets with the system where they are prepared by a content management system for distribution to consumers via a secure distribution system. The media content suppliers may then track and-control the use of their media assets through a subscriber management system for managing consumer accounts, a licensing server for issuing licenses restricting the use of media content, and a royalty reporter for determining and reporting royalties to the various content suppliers.

A system for playing music uses a playlist server in communication with the Internet. The playlist server has a plurality of playlists stored thereon. A content server is also in communication with the Internet. The content server has a plurality of songs stored thereon. A rendering device plays songs. A set-top box in communication with the rendering device facilitates communication of the songs from the content server to the rendering device via the Internet. A remote control controls the set-top box. The remote control is configured to obtain a playlist from the playlist server, facilitate selection of a song from the playlist, and control the set-top box so as to cause the set-top box to download the song and cause the song to play on the rendering device.

A method for playing music, the method includes providing a plurality of devices on a wireless local area network, bringing a new device into a range of the wireless local area network, and receiving a list of devices that are on the local area network at the new device from a server not on the local area network.

This document describes tools capable of managing advertising in the field of digital entertainment content. The tools may enable advertisers to know which advertisements are more effective or are more likely to be effective with all users, users having similar demographic profiles, or a particular user. The tools may do so by building and maintaining profiles for users. These profiles may include many users' interactions with various advertisements, demographic information for the users usable to compare users, explicitly selected preferences of users, users' implicit preferences based on what entertainment content they watch, and other information.

The invention relates to a cooperative construction method for enhancing a realistic table-tennis system based on real rackets. The method comprises the following steps of: detecting and tracking a real table-tennis racket by utilizing the color characteristics according to a video image acquired by the system; designing and realizing the virtual-real three-dimensional registration of a virtual scene and a real scene, mapping the virtual scene to a video image coordinate system of the real rackets, participator users and real environment; designing and realizing the collision detection between a virtual table-tennis ball and objects, such as the real rackets, a virtual table-tennis table, a virtual table-tennis net, and the like according to the motion information of the real rackets and confirming and representing the motion trajectory of the virtual table-tennis ball after collision; and providing a finite state machine and a message-processing mechanism, controlling the conversion of various states of the table-tennis system in the operation process and ensuring a plurality of users to have the same table-tennis motion experience. The cooperative construction method can be widely applied to the fields, such as interactive digital entertainment, sports research, training simulation, remote education and training, and the like.

A portable entertainment apparatus capable of communicating with a digital entertainment server is provided. The digital entertainment server is operable to store video content, and the portable entertainment apparatus is operable to store at least part of the video content stored in the digital entertainment server. The portable entertainment apparatus may include (i) a communications interface for downloading video content from the digital entertainment server in digital format, (ii) a storage module for storing the downloaded video content; and (iii) a controller coupled to and operable to control the operations of the communications interface and the storage module. The controller is operable to control the communication interface so as to download to the portable entertainment apparatus at least part of the video content stored in the digital entertainment server responsive to the portable entertainment apparatus establishing a communication with the digital entertainment server.

System and method for on board digital entertainment, communication and information system for mass transportation medium (static or mobile) is presented. The system consists of server, software algorithm and client devices. Client devices are connected wirelessly to the server and the server is connected to other servers and external medium wirelessly thereby providing seamless connectivity to the client devices to the server and to outside world. A server design is presented with multiple redundancies to provide un-interrupted services. A client design is presented that enables connectivity to a known server and can be manufactured with low cost. A software algorithm is presented that can prioritize among multiple tasks.

A method and system for transmitting and displaying venue-based synchronized camera views for live venue activities to remote views. A synchronized camera can include a main camera and at least one slave camera, wherein slave camera movement depends on movement by the main camera. Views captured by a slave camera can be of the same general target as those captured by the main camera. Remote viewers can be venue-based hand held devices or distant monitors. Remote viewers can include hand held devices and digital entertainment monitors (e.g., HDTV). Within a venue, the camera views can be processed and formatted for display on display screens associated with venue-based hand held device. A user can select from more than one view from the synchronized camera that the user wants displayed on the remote viewer, thereby enabling a user of the hand held device to view more than one camera view, at a time or simultaneously, through the remote viewer.

The invention relates to a football video highlight automatic synthesis method based on an event model. The method comprises the following steps: to a football match video highlight, defining whether a football video highlight clip can be separated into a football video event composed of a plurality of motions; constructing a core-surrounding event model to express a football highlight clip; utilizing football match video and corresponding text narration to construct a training set, selecting goals and red and yellow cards as two types of football highlights, and training the event model; inputting a segment of football match video without narration, identifying an appearance position of a football highlight clip in the input video, and giving a matching mark; according to a user requirement, automatically synthesizing a football highlight clip with a highest mark to be a football video highlight. According to a method of generating the football video highlight in the invention, restriction of factors such as a lens distance of the input video, and the method can be widely applied and popularized to fields of personal digital entertainment, physical education movie and television production and the like.

Audio playback is used to enhance the control of Personal Digital Entertainment devices. Embodiments of the present invention provide audio message files associated with the activation of a control or provide other device status messaging Audio messages are also provided in file sets that are user selectable to give the user a choice of ‘themes’.

The invention provides an individualized realistic virtual character modeling method based on images. Four human body images on the facade, lateral surfaces and back quickly generate an individualized three-dimensional human body model with realistic appearance. The method comprises the following steps: using a human body model based on a swept surface as a human body template model; extracting human body characteristic information from the images, establishing a corresponding relation between the human body template model and the human body images, and deforming the human body template model to generate an individualized human body geometric model; and on the two-dimensional parameterized results of the human body model, generating vivid human body textures by the human body images, and seamlessly mapping the human body textures to the three-dimensional individualized human body model to obtain the individualized human body model with realistic visual effect. The human body images are from a camera, a video camera and the like. The method provides a new low-cost and efficient human body modeling path for the field of virtual reality and digital entertainment.

The invention discloses a region-segmentation-based portrait illumination transfer method. An illumination effect on a reference portrait is transferred to a target portrait, so that the target portrait has an illumination effect similar to that of the reference portrait. An illumination effect material database is established, and most of illumination effects in the nature can be approximately fitted. An illumination material which is the most similar to the illumination attribute of the reference portrait and the material attribute of the target portrait is searched from the illumination effect material database for illumination transfer. An edge preserving filter-based transfer method is used for hair and face regions, and a quotient image method is used for shoulder regions. The consistency of the illumination effect is ensured by using global illumination constraints. The method can be widely popularized and applied to application scenarios such as portrait art illumination effect synthesis, interactive digital entertainment and image virtual scene synthesis.

The invention relates to a binocular image and object contour-based virtual and actual sheltering treatment method, which comprises the following steps of: accurately calculating the regional contour of a real object by an interactive image segmentation algorithm, and taking the regional contour as the geometrical information of the real object; and according to the negatively-correlated relation between parallax and depth, estimating the parallax of a virtual object under a current visual angle, determining the relative depth information between the virtual object and the real object in a current scene, and hierarchically dividing the scene. The front-and-back sheltering relation between the virtual object and the real object is estimated and determined by using the relative depth information, the depth information is not required to be calculated in a pixel-by-pixel manner; and the virtual and actual sheltering treatment is achieved in a two-dimensional image space, whether the sheltering between the virtual object and the real object exists or not is judged, and corresponding treatment is carried out, so that the binocular image and object contour-based virtual and actual sheltering treatment method can be applicable to most sheltering circumstances and a better virtual and actual sheltering treatment effect is achieved. The binocular image and object contour-based virtual and actual sheltering treatment method can be widely applied to the spatial sheltering treatment of virtual reality systems, such as interactive digital entertainment, sports research and training simulation, distance education and training and the like.

The invention discloses a cube-based sports event information visualization method which comprises the following steps of: establishing a multi-dimensional hierarchical structure of the event data; converting the collected multi-dimensional hierarchical data instance of the sports event into a graphical model extensible markup language format according to the user request; defining a cubic layout for visualizing the sports event information; establishing a cube in a visualization area, designating a layer for each dimension of the cube by the user, and establishing a mapping relationship between the data layers and the cube dimensions; generating an algorithm and a label cloud algorithm by use of a rectangular tree structure chart, generating a corresponding rectangular tree structure chart for each surface of the cube, and generating a cubic view; and providing scaling, returning, rotation, expansion and merging interactive operations, and generating a tiled view and a rectangular view for the user respectively. The method disclosed by the invention can visualize the hierarchical relationship of multi-dimensional data, and can be popularized to the fields of education training, digital entertainment, sports research, drill analysis and the like.

Priority-based content retrieval mechanisms for digital entertainment devices are provided. In various embodiments, the download prioritizations may be interrupt-based, sequence-based, or a combination of the two. In interrupt-based prioritizations, a higher priority download request will interrupt a lower-priority download that is already in progress. In sequence-based prioritizations, a plurality of file download requests may be ordered in a download queue depending on the priority of the request, with higher priority requests being positioned towards the top of the queue and lower priority requests being positioned towards the bottom of the queue.

One or more content providers push data related to: movies, movie products, digital movie content over a network (e.g., a LAN, a WAN, the Internet, or a wireless network) onto an information filling station which, in turn, wirelessly transacts (over a network based on the 802.11b protocol) and transmits any requested data to a portable computer-based device (e.g., laptop, a pen-based computer device, a PDA, a wireless phone, or a pager). The portable device performs financial transactions for: purchasing movie tickets (directly or via auctions), downloading digital entertainment content of interest (e.g., copy of a movie of interest, copy of a movie identified based on a pre-stored profile, copy of soundtrack of a movie of interest), or movie related products. Any purchased digital content is either transferred wirelessly onto the portable device or, optionally, sent on a storage medium to a physical address associated with the profile.

The invention discloses a digital virtual-real interaction system and a digital virtual-real interaction method. The digital virtual-real interaction system comprises a gesture acquisition device, a processing device and a display device. The digital virtual-real interaction method includes the steps of (1) tracking and capturing motion track of user's fingertip acquired by a camera, (2) drawing a track curve on a display in real time or displaying or recording of the track of the user's fingertip through a touch screen, (3) extracting a profile formed by the motion track, detecting the shape of the profile and giving semantics, (4) building a three-dimensional model base and managing three-dimensional models in a graphics library according to the semantics, (5) retrieving the three-dimensional model base according to the semantics of the hand-drawing track of the user, loading the corresponding three-dimensional models and displaying a three-dimensional virtual environment, and (6) performing dynamic interaction among the user, the three-dimensional model and the virtual environment so as to realize digital virtual-real interaction. The digital virtual-real interaction system and the digital virtual-real interaction method are adaptable to application fields of digital entertainment, virtual design, virtual-real interaction, virtual teaching and the like.

The invention discloses a pencil sketch simulating and drawing system based on brush stroke. In the system, a three-dimensional geometrical model is used as input, and a pencil sketch picture is generated by combining automatic generation and interaction. The system classifies the brush strokes in the pencil sketch drawing into feature brush strokes and hatch brush strokes, and performs simulation and drawing respectively. The system mainly comprises a user interaction module, a feature path automatic generation module, a hatch path automatic generation module, a module for generating brush strokes from paths and a drawing output module. The system disclosed by the invention conforms to the actual pencil sketch creation mechanism of the human, realizes a real drawing effect, is easy to edit and modify and the like, and has important application values in the aspects of computer-aided design, artistic design, special effects, digital entertainment and the like.

The invention discloses a self-adaptation virtual and actual three-dimensional registration method based on multiple natural characteristics. The self-adaptation virtual and actual three-dimensional registration method comprises steps including that various natural characteristics are generated by means of analyzing video sequences of an actual scene, aggregations of the various natural characteristics are also generated, the states of the various natural characteristics are comprehensively analyzed, priority for virtual and actual three-dimensional registration of the various natural characteristics is obtained, a type of natural characteristics for virtual and actual three-dimensional registration is interactively selected according to the priority or by a user, then the various natural characteristics in the selected type of the natural characteristic aggregation are detected in the video sequences of the actual scene, the natural characteristics with high stability and / or distinctiveness is selected and used as natural characteristics for final registration, and finally, three-dimensional registration of a virtual object in the actual scene is carried out by the aid of the natural characteristics for final registration. The self-adaptation virtual and actual three-dimensional registration method can be widely applied to virtual and actual three-dimensional registration and fusion in virtual reality systems for interactive type digital entertainment, sports researches and training simulation, distance education and training and the like.

The invention relates to a method for drawing a three-dimensionally assisted two-dimensional graphic, which relates to a drawing method applying a three-dimensional model to a two-dimensional animation and belongs to the field of digital entertainment. The method aims at solving the problem that the prior software cannot automatically determine which parts of a role will be covered under a condition that the visual angle is changed. The method comprises the following steps: 1, reading in the three-dimensional model, and acquiring a vertex normal vector, a vertex principal curvature, a vertex Gaussian curvature and the direction of the vertex principal curvature of the three-dimensional model; 2, placing the three-dimensional model in a three-dimensional space; 3, drawing an edge contour line of the three-dimensional model; 4, acquiring a characteristic line related to a viewpoint; and 5, drawing the characteristic line related to the viewpoint in the step 4. Through the combination of the two-dimensional animation and a three-dimensional animation, the visual effect is enriched, and the source of animation raw data is expanded.

The invention discloses a display system and a display method applied to an embedded digital entertainment on-demand system. The method includes the steps: dividing image data about to be displayed in display equipment into a background layer and a text layer by means of layering technology, and dividing a text layer area into at least two blocks including a text display area and a text preparation area outside the display area respectively, wherein each of the background layer and the text layer is in a memory compatible DC (dual channel) form; stacking the text display area of the text layer with the background layer of a display area of the display equipment, storing the stacked text display area and the background layer into a frame, and outputting the frame to the display equipment for display; and moving the text layer relative to a background layer area, generating data after the text layer is moved every time to be stacked with the background layer and outputting the data to the display equipment for display. The display system and the display method are capable of improving efficiency of scroll captions in the embedded digital entertainment on-demand system.

The invention discloses a face portrait synthesis method based on greedy search. The face portrait synthesis method comprises the following steps: dividing a dictionary training picture sample set A, synthesizing a training picture sample set Bp, synthesizing a training portrait sample set Bs and testing a picture sample set; blocking so as to obtain a dictionary training picture block set SA, synthesizing a training picture block set Sp, synthesizing a training portrait block set Ss and testing a picture block set; learning a training picture block characteristic dictionary Dp from the dictionary training picture block set SA; solving a sparse representation set Cp corresponding to Sp and testing sparse representation corresponding to the picture block S by using Dp; performing greedy search in Cp by using sparse representation so as to find neighbors; establishing a Markov random field model by using the searched neighbor portrait-picture blocks so as to synthesize portraits. Compared with a conventional method, the face portrait synthesis method does not need to limit the background of a tested picture, is capable of combining non-face components in the tested picture, and can be applied to criminal investigation and digital entertainment.

The invention relates to an object illumination moving method based on gradient operation, and provides a new technical scheme for the generation of a virtual scene illumination effect based on stock footage. The invention is characterized in that the total process of building an object illumination moving method based on the gradient operation comprises the following steps: generating an illumination moving result through the steps of image aligning, image layering, weighing of least squares filtering, gradient operation, Poisson integral and image combination; improving a least squares filter; self-adaptively calculating the least squares filtering parameter according to the unsmooth content of the image, so as to carry out filtering in higher level in the unsmooth area and save more detail information in a detail layer; and adding gray level constraints in the gradient operation, so as to enable the whole gray level of the result of the illumination moving to be more close to the reference object. The method provided by the invention can be widely used and promoted to the fields such as interactive digital entertainment, movie and television programming, artistic designing and creation and the like.