WO1999059328A2

WO1999059328A2 - Private cinema

Info

Publication number: WO1999059328A2
Application number: PCT/SE1999/000739
Authority: WO
Inventors: Lennart Isaksson
Original assignee: Telia Ab (Publ)
Priority date: 1998-05-08
Filing date: 1999-05-04
Publication date: 1999-11-18
Also published as: SE9801603D0; WO1999059328A3; EP1080575A2; SE9801603L; SE513146C2

Abstract

System with service which can be subscribed to, for processing of video information, at which it includes a home terminal which can be connected to just any video camera, a showing equipment for said video information, preferably TV, computer, connected to said home terminal and one with said home terminal co-operating centrally arranged server, preferably at telecommunications office, at which said home terminal is arranged to load said video information from said just any video camera to said centrally arranged server for storing of said video information, and that said video information is stored on one, by subscriber to said service, in advance coded and addressable way so that said subscriber in a simple way can convert between storing formats, edit, make index, show and trade in said video information from his/her own home terminal, or from just any subscriber's home terminal.

Description

PRIVATE CINEMA

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a system with service which can be subscribed to, for processing of video information.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Conversion between storing formats In many homes there are super-8 films where persons born in the twenties and thirties have filmed their children during the years when they were growing up. The projectors now are beginning to go to pieces, so it will be more and more difficult to show the films to children and grandchildren.

Persons born in the forties and fifties instead film with different kinds of video cameras. Also this technology is now becoming to be out-of-date as digital video cameras are introduced. It therefore will be difficult to find working videocassette recorders for VHS, High-8 and other video formats in a few years.

Anyone realises that the product life cycle for the digital cameras/video formats which are now being introduced will be shorter and shorter. The initial MPEG-1 coding for data screens and interactive TV will at a quick pace be changed to more advanced picture/video coding formats which will further reduce the information content which needs to be stored, at the same time as the resolution which is handled will be higher and higher. In addition the new coding formats will offer improved possibilities for picture/video search and picture/video editing.

Editing of analogically and digitally stored video A big problem to users of analog video cameras is editing of the film material. For it will take a very long time to make such an editing of a privately filmed video tape so that the film will be enjoyable to watch. Ordinary people therefore normally only edits one video tape before he/she gives up. After that the video filming is more regarded as an activity used to document interesting events, such as the growing up of the children, vacations, feasts etc for the future. The films will in other words remain in the drawers instead of being watched by family, relations and friends.

Indexing/search of picture /video information One more problem for the private film maker is to, when needed, find the film sequence which he/she wants to show to relations and friends. In the analog world, everything depends on that the film maker on separate media (normally paper) has noted down where on the tapes different sequences have been stored. Even if the film maker is so careful, which probably is more exception than a rule, it will take long time to wind right tape to the start of wanted film sequence.

Showing independent of place and type of terminal Another disadvantage with both the older analog video cameras and the new digital cameras is associated with the showing. Since the storing is made on physical medium, spontaneous showing can not be made if the person does not have the physical media accessible, and access to necessary showing equipment .

Possibility to trade in privately made films The digital technology creates very good possibilities to rapidly, efficiently and cheap make and edit privately made films. This will create possibilities for person with specific interests to make quality films which they then can sell to other persons with similar interests. This trade within "Communities of Interest" (COIs) is expected to get very large proportions, because private persons with special interests often develop their competence considerably more than what many professionals do in the lines of business. On the Internet there are a lot of examples of this within, for instance, the forestry sector.

The aim of the present invention consequently is to eliminate above mentioned problems and disadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The above mentioned aim is achieved by a system with a service which can be subscribed to, for processing of video information, at which it includes a home terminal which can be connected to just any video camera, a showing equipment for said video information, preferably TV, computer, connected to said home terminal, and one with said home terminal co-operating centrally arranged server, preferably at a telecommunications office, at which said home terminal is arranged to load information from said camera to said server for central storing of said video information, so that said video information is stored on one by said subscriber to said service in advance coded and addressable way, so that said subscriber in a simple way can convert between storing formats, edit, making index, show and trade in said video information from his/her own home terminal, or from just any other subscriber's home terminal.

A first component of the invention/service consequently provides for the customers' need for security related to filing and possibility to show private film material, independent of how coding standards etc will develop in the future. This by storing film material on Telia's servers, where Telia is given the responsibility for necessary conversions, if any. A second component of the invention/service provides for efficient network based tools for editing of the film material which the customers are storing on Telia's servers .

The third component of the invention/service handles efficient search in the digital multimedia stream in Telia's servers. By the invention/service handling the material on Telia's server environment, spontaneous- showing, can be made from just any network connected terminal. As Telia by the service supports different types of network connections (Interactive Cable-TV network and Internet/Extranet with good QoS-level by, for instance, high speed copper access, radio access or satellite access) and terminal types (Interactive TV and different types of multimedia computers incl . network computers and mobile terminals), the customer is given great flexibility. By the terminals being possible to be equipped with readers for electronic ID-cards, in addition is guaranteed security against undue access of the private film archive.

International futurology related to development of the enterprising shows that one-man firms, or firms with few owners, will provide a considerable part of the employment in the future by i.a. the type of activity which the Telia Private Cinema-service makes possible, connected to commercial possibilities. By interconnecting Telia Private Cinema to services for Electronic Payment and Electronic Software Distribution/Copyright Protection, the foundation therefore is laid for an expansive business activity with great varieties, which will become an important complement to the services Telia is offering today.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following a detailed description of an embodiment of the invention is given with references to the enclosed figures, of which:

Figure 1 shows the welcome picture which the customers will meet in the Telia Private Cinema-service according to the present invention;

Figure 2 shows the system construction for Telia Private Cinema according to the invention; Figure 3 to 15 shows editing and showing of a specific Telia Private Cinema-film according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION Figure 1 shows, as has been mentioned above, the welcome picture the customers will meet in the case where selected customer terminal is Interactive TV or home computer connected to the Internet. Figure 2 is a schematic picture of information transmission at storing and showing of multimedia film material in the Telia Private Cinema- service. In the case the customer uses the service via his/her Internet/Extranet-connected computer, the TV- equipment is of course changed to corresponding computer equipment in the picture. Storing of analog/digital video

In the cases the customer wants to store analogically made video (figure 2) via the Telia Private Cinema-service , conversion service can be offered via Telia's tele-shops and/or via radio/TV-traders. This is made by automatic coding with equipment for current MPEG-standard. This gives about 4-6 GB data for a 90 minutes video film with PAL Broadcasting quality. By handling the coding on a large scale (the tele-shops and/or the radio/TV-traders transmits the films further to coding centre) the cost for the coding should be kept at a moderate cost level .

If the customer has made the film with a digital video camera which handles the MPEG-standard, it should be possible for the customer to connect the camera to the home terminal and load the film material directly to Telia's server.

The customer suitably pays a fixed fee for different levels of memory utilisation of Telia's servers (at least as long as the data storing constitutes a considerable part of the total cost of the service for Telia) . In that way the customer is prodded to reduce the film material by editing which makes the films more enjoyable to watch, at the same time as the data storing volume is kept within manageable levels.

In order to reduce Telia's operating costs, film material which is not frequently used can be stored on automatic magnetic tape unit archives. When the customer requests showing of a sequence, the material is transferred to Telia's faster memory environments (initially RAID-based Winchester disks) . Since the customer by streaming technology can see the material immediately as it is beginning to be transferred to disk, the access will be experienced as rapid. By providing pointers to all addressable segments in the picture/video material (segment = the film sequences which the customer has associated with name to make searches possible) rapidity is achieved even if the customer starts his/her session with frequent searches. Transfer to disk then can be stopped for current film segment as soon as a new segment is ordered for showing by the customer.

Conversion of digital storing format In the cases it will be necessary to convert the digitally stored multimedia bit streams in Telia's servers, this is made at Telia's coding centre. Specific system configuration/parameter-setting is required for conversion between different sets of video/picture coding formats. Equipment for this will be commercially available on the market .

Editing of digitally stored video Since all information which is handled in Telia Private Cinema-service is stored in digital bitstreams on Telia's servers (can be distributed geographically) all editing is made in digital form.

In order to make it possible to launch the service early, it is required that editing can be made based on early MPEG-formats type MPEG-1 and 2. Subsequent versions such as MPEG-7 will support considerably more refined search and editing possibilities. The editing of early MPEG-versions is handled according to the following. The digital -multimedia bit stream is represented graphically on the user's terminal (Interactive TV (ordinary TV connected to remote control which in best case consists of wireless keyboard with joystick) or multimedia-based computer) according to Figure 2.

The digital multimedia stream from Telia's server is shown on the customer's terminal as a pack of cards seen obliquely from the side where the film picture which is addressed for the time being is shown foremost (Figure 3) . By the fact that a coherent film sequence has one on the whole same colour nuance through the whole film sequence, it will be sufficient to show the top line and the left column for the pictures which have not yet been shown. The customer then will have good idea of the relative relation and length in time of the different picture sequences, as can be seen in Figure 3.

Since the MPEG-standard works in such a way that a complete new start regarding complete information storing is made at big change in the information content of a "film-frame", it is easy to address and show the first "film-frame" in each new film sequence.

Figure 4 to 13 shows different moments/mechanisms in the digital film editing.

In Figure 4 the customer has chosen to address the last film sequence in the stored film.

After the customer having appointed the last film sequence in Figure 4, it starts showing (Figure 5) . Since the customer is of the opinion that this sequence should be placed after the initial sequence with Malin's one-year birthday, the customer marks this place to move the film sequence to. From the moment the beach sequence from Playa Ingles has started showing and until the film sequence has been moved to new place, only a few seconds have elapsed. This is made possible by that only the pointers to the film sequences are updated, whereas the data of the film blocks are unchanged on disk/tape in Telia's server. As can be seen in Figure 6, the customer now sees that the film sequence from Playa Ingles has been moved on the screen. When the customer sees the updated schematic picture of his/her film in Figure 6, it can be seen that the finishing film sequence from the vacation in the wild region in Varmland is disproportionately long. The customer therefore starts studying the last film sequence. The finishing film sequence related to the vacation in the wild region is shown on the customer terminal as is shown by Figure 7. The customer jumps between the different film blocks in the last film segment. This is made possible by jump-function between the complete "MPEG-frames" which are created when the MPEG-standard orders a "data dump" when changing pictures from the nearest previous "data dump" have changed too much, or that the number of film frames from the previous dump have passed the threshold value. If the number of data dumps are too close, the customer can chose to jump between picture frames which are located about 15 seconds between each other.

As can be seen in Figure 8, the customer quickly finds a part sequence which can be removed to give the film a better flow and speed. According to Figure 9 the customer informs the editing service that the remaining part of the last film sequence shall be placed after the Play Ingles-segment .

Finally one will have the completely edited film neatly put together as can be seen in Figure 10. In order to simplify the search of film sequences, the customer is given possibility to give the different film segments own names as is shown in the Figures 11 to 13. The names which the customer is giving the different film segments are stored in the database which keeps a check on the editing the customer has made in his/her films (order between the segments etc) and by that contain pointer to the position on disks/tapes where the customer's data are stored. In the Figures 12 and 13 it consequently can be seen that the position of the pointer has the name "Playa Ingles 14 June 1997", respective "Wild Region Adventures in Varmland, July 1997".

Indexing/search of picture information As can be seen in figure 14, the customer can in a very user-friendly way mark the film segment/segments which shall be shown. The customer can click (by the mouse) to the film segment which is wanted when they are shown on the screen.

There also is a possibility to allow the customer to make freetext searches if the number of film segments is too big for different listings in alphabetical order, time order etc .

The customers are further given possibility to put together tailor-made showings with different film segments interconnected. This is made by the customer naming the "new" film and stating the film segments it shall consist of. Important is to emphasise that all this is made by pointers to the film segments. This means that the customer can have a large number of "films" where single film segments exist in several of the films without the film segment being for that reason stored physically in several places in Telia's server. Similar handling as for film segments are then offered for search/showing on "film level". I.e. different types of listing functions where the films are given in alphabetical order, time order when they were created etc. The customer then can see a short "trailer" in a small window when a film is marked to freshen up the memory that it is right film to show before showing of the film is requested.

In addition to Interactive TV, the customer can handle and watch the private films via other customer terminals where the multimedia quality depends on the quality of the customer terminal (colour/colour resolution etc) and the quality level of the network connection (bandwidth) as can be seen in Figure 15.

Another big advantage is that the customer can use the Telia Private Cinema-service from optional physical location. If the customer wants to show a film/film sequence on a visit to friends, it is only for him/her to identify himself/herself via the electronic ID-reader which is connected to the terminal at the home of the aquainted person. Then the customer is given access to his/her multimedia film archive.

Possibility to trade in privately made films By offering the additional services electronic payment and electronic software distribution (ESD) with copyright protection, the customers of Telia Private Cinema are given possibility to sell showing of multimedia material on payment. The procedure is as follows.

A. The customer A (the owner of the multimedia film material) identifies himself/herself via electronic ID to the system and states that a specified film material is for sale. As an option, customer A can state that only specified users are entitled to buy. In other case anyone is entitled to buy offered film material. In order to avoid that Telia takes part in trade with unethical film material, it shall be quite evident that Telia as provider of the service has right and possibility to examine all film material which is offered for sale whether this is made to aimed groups of customers or to the whole market . Telia also should distinctly state the ethical requirements of the type of film material which the service supports. The customer who infringes the rules is cut off from the service with immediate effect .

The marketing of the film material can of course be made beside the Private Cinema-service (for instance through other Community-Of- Interest -fora on the Internet, advertising on WWW, or via more conventional media etc) . Telia should, however, offer a separate service for the trade in film material between consumers. It can for instance be called "Telia KόpBio" ("Telia Buy Cinema") It will be integrated with the handling which is described here for Telia Private Cinema, but also includes advertising and showing of 30-seconds trailers which the users have produced themselves to make the customers interested in just their film material.

B. The customer A (customer to Telia Private Cinema- service, but seller of own film material) informs the Telia Private Cinema-service that Customer B (buyer of the multimedia material) shall be entitled to buy stated film sequences for specified sum. Default is, however, that anyone shall be entitled to buy the material. C. Customer B announces his/her interest to Telia

Private Cinema-service to buy specified multimedia material from A. In connection with announcement customer B identifies himself/herself to the system via electronic ID. In order to handle this trade, Telia suitably offers a commercial advertisement market for multimedia material for sale. Only the material which a customer is entitled to buy can be seen at the advertisement place for the customer in question. The customers there will have possibility to show their offers via advertisements and trailers which gives a sample of the offer.

D. The Telia Private Cinema-service asks for payment for ordered material from the buyer B.

E . After the buyer B has paid via accepted means of payment, the buyer is given access to the material. Acceptable means of payment can, for instance, be via SET- based credit card, Cash-card type Proton, Chipper and Mondex, picopayment type Cybercash/Netbill etc.

F. If the purchase only includes right to showing, the Telia Private Cinema-service allows the buyer only possibility to watch the film material one, or a specified number of times, during specified period of time (for instance during a 24-hour period) etc. By encrypted transmission the buyer is prevented from storing the information himself/herself in usable format. By the key only working once per transmission, repeated showings are prevented.

G. If the purchase instead has included copy of the source material, Telia Private Cinema performs copying of ordered material to the buyer's partition on Telia's server. If the buyer is lacking partition on Telia's server, the distribution may alternatively be made in a way that the buyer receives the cryption key for transmitted material so that the buyer himself/herself can store the material in the data environment the buyer himself/herself has at his/her disposal. In this way international trade with video information between buyers and sellers connected to different service operators is made possible with maintained secure handling of transfer of payment and program content so that no party need to transfer his/her part of the trade (money respective multimedia material) before the other party has fulfilled his/her part of the agreement .

The invention/service Telia Private Cinema can be put on the market via Telia Infomedia Television for instance in connection with introduction Interactive TV-services to the households. Initial test can be performed in connection with field tests of Switched Video Broadcast.

The service also can be launched initially via tests with high-speed copper to the households. This can be made by the households being given access to the service via Interactive TV, or via broadband Internet access

(extranet), i.e. Telia provides high rate connections between server environment and the customer's computer.

As the QoS-level on the public Internet increases, the service can be offered via, for instance, Telia Infomedia Interactive's service "Passagen" . The above mentioned is only to be regarded as an advantageous embodiment of the invention, and the extent of protection of the invention is only limited by what is stated in the following patent claims.

Claims

PATENT CLAIMS

1. System with service which can be subscribed to, for processing of video information, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that it includes a home terminal which can be connected to just any video camera, a showing equipment for said video information, preferably TV, computer, connected to said home terminal and one with said home terminal cooperating centrally arranged server, preferably at telecommunications office, at which said home terminal is arranged to load video information from said just any video camera to said centrally arranged server for storing of said video information, and that said video information is stored on one, by subscriber to said service, in advance coded and addressable way, so that said subscriber in a simple way can convert between storing formats, edit, make index, show and trade in said video information from his/her own home terminal or from just any other subscriber's home terminal.

2. System accordning to patent claim 1, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said home terminal is equipped with reader for electronic identity cards, at which each subscriber who has been allocated an identity card has to identify himself/herself by means of said reader to get access to his/her, on said server arranged, video information.

3. System accordning to patent claim 2, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber can get access to his/her own video information from own home terminal, or from other subscriber's home terminal, by identification by means of said reader.

4. System accordning to any of the previous patent claims, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said video information is stored digitally on said server,. preferably Telia Server.

5. System accordning to patent claim 4, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said if a film has been made by digital video camera, for instance one which handles MPEG-standard, the video camera is connected directly to the home terminal which loads the video information corresponding to said film on said server.

6. System accordning to patent claim 4, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that if the subscriber provides analogically stored film, for instance VHS, a conversion service is offered in a central coding installation, for instance a coding installation in a Telia shop etc, at which said coding installation codes and digitizes said analogically stored film, at which said coding installation is arranged to load video information corresponding to said digitized film to said server, preferably Telia Server, by which said video information will be accessible to said subscriber via just any home terminal subscribing to the service .

7. System accordning to any of the previous patent claims, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber can address said just any video information segments in said, on the server stored, video information, and edit said video information segments on said showing equipment.

8. System accordning to patent claim 7, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber, on the showing equipment, can place pointers to all addressable video information segments, which pointers corresponding to predefined video information segments are used by subscriber for editing of the video information.

9. System accordning to the patent claim 8, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber gives specific pointer corresponding to specific video information segment, a name, for instance, Playa Ingles 14 June 1997.

10. System accordning to patent claim 9, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber can show just any video information segments in just any order on said showing equipment by calling pointer or name corresponding said video information segments in the same just any order.

11. System accordning to patent claim 10, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber can make a completely new film by addressing, i.e. naming, pointer and combine just any saved video information segments on said server.

12. System accordning to patent claim 11, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said subscriber can make just any number of films by combining just any number of addresses corresponding to video information segments in just any defined order, at which, at showing of' a film with a specific order, video information segments corresponding to said address in specific order, are collected from the server for showing on said showing equipment .

13. System according to any of the previous patent claims, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that it also includes an additional service where said subscriber can offer his/her stored video information for sale to just any other subscriber to the service.

14. System according to patent claim 13, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said just any other subscriber who wants to buy video information from said subscriber contacts said additional service/said subscriber who attends to that said video information stored on the server is loaded to home terminal belonging to said just any other subscriber, by which said other just any subscriber can show said video information on his/her showing equipment .

15. System according to patent claim 14, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said other just any subscriber only buys the right to show said video information for a limited period of time, at which said subscriber/additional service loads said video information in encrypted form to said other just any user, and a key for decryption of said video information, which key stops decryption of said video information after said limited period of time.

16. System according to patent claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said other just any subscriber buys said video information, at which said subscriber/additional service attends to that said other just any subscriber constantly has access to said key.

17. System according to any of the patent claims 13- 16, c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that said other just any subscriber has access to said video information only when he/she has paid to said additional service/said subscriber via accepted means of payment, such as SET-based credit card, Cash-card, Cyber-cash/Netbill etc.