KR20010113711A - Apparatus for and method of presenting a scene - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus (100) for representing multimedia scenes represented in electronic form. The device possibly has a retrieval module 120 that retrieves the caption 134 from the remote server 128. The caption includes a component identification 140 that identifies a component 136 that contains content for the scene, and a conditional access identification 144 that determines access rights to that component. The conditional access module 122 of the device determines access rights to the component. If the determined access rights are granted, the device retrieves the content of the component and represents a scene containing the content of the retrieved component.

Description

[0001] APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PRESENTING A SCENE [0002]

The reproduction of a multimedia presentation on a computer or the like may involve some elements. The presentation may be combined with various portions of video and / or images, possibly audio fragments. It is known to designate such a multimedia presentation as so-called subtitles. The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 1.0 specification, REC-smil-19980615), as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium, is the appropriate language for defining such subtitles. The subtitle specifies a number of components that contribute to the content of the scene in which the content will be displayed on the screen, e.g., some images and the audio paragraph to be played back. The subtitles also specify the interrelationships between these components, such as where and how any images are to be placed on the screen and when any audio paragraphs should be played. In an implementation using SMIL, the content description is a file in the SMIL format, and the individual components are the respective audio files of the MP3, images of GIF and JPEG, and other files of the appropriate formats. The display engine analyzes the subtitle file and searches for the component file when it is needed during the presentation of the subtitle. Typical examples of system configurations include a server computer to which subtitle files and component files belong, and a client computer on which the display engine is running. The client computer may access the server computer over a network connection, e.g., the Internet. International patent application WO 99/39272 describes a system for displaying a scene based on such a client-sever architecture. This system is provided for the user to interact with the displayed scene, which allows the user to select a particular sub-scene. The selection is sent from the client to the server as an instruction to initiate a new display.

The content is associated with a value and can be protected by a conditional access system. Such a system permits the use of the content according to the rights the user has acquired the content. This means that any component files are accessed by any users but can not be accessed by any other users. When a file is requested, the conditional access system that controls it through the file verifies the current user rights and supplies the file if those rights are granted. Alternatively, the component file can be encoded, and the decryption key needs to properly reproduce the content. The conditional access system will supply the key if the user rights authorize this. In the case of encoded files, the file itself may be freely available to everyone, since it is useless unless a decryption key is available.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for displaying a scene expressed in electronic form.

The present invention also relates to a method for displaying a scene represented in electronic form.

The invention also relates to a computer program product for carrying out such a method and to a storage medium for executing such a computer program product.

The present invention also relates to an apparatus for generating a subtitle.

The present invention also relates to a method of generating a subtitle.

The present invention also relates to a storage medium for executing such subtitles.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an apparatus for representing a scene in accordance with the present invention;

2 is a schematic diagram showing an apparatus for generating subtitles according to the present invention;

It is an object of the present invention to provide a device for effectively processing access rights to display a scene. This object is achieved according to the invention by a retrieving means for retrieving subtitles, the subtitles comprising a component identification identifying a component comprising content for a scene, a retrieval means including conditional access identification for determining access rights to the component, , Conditional access determining means for determining access rights to the component, and display means for indicating a scene containing the content of the component in accordance with the access rights. Due to the fact that the conditional access identification of a given component is included in the subtitles, user rights to the content of that component can be determined without accessing the component itself or its multiplex. Also,

It is advantageous in that the user rights to the component can be established directly when analyzing the subtitles, since the content of the component becomes unavailable, the indication can be immediately adapted. Such adaptation may replace the intended content of the component with a stub that repositiones the other components, scales the other components to fill a larger portion of the screen, or otherwise differentiates the missing content have. An advantage of the apparatus according to the invention is that such adaptation can be done without obtaining conditional access identification of the components from outside the subtitles.

An embodiment of the device according to the invention is described in claim 2. By specifying the identification of the conditional access system in the caption, the apparatus can operate as one or more conditional access systems. Other subtitles and components may be protected by other conditional access systems, while they may be displayed on a device according to the present invention.

An embodiment of an apparatus according to the invention is described in claim 3. In this embodiment, it is particularly advantageous to determine access rights to components from subtitles, since it is avoided to search for components in the absence of access rights. When components are present on a remote computer connected to the device via a network, avoiding searching for obsolete components saves valuable network bandwidth.

An embodiment of the device according to the invention is described in claim 4. If a particular user of the subtitles does not have (more) access rights to the original component then there is an advantage to have another component available as an alternative. The device determines this situation directly by verifying the access rights based on the conditional access identification indication in the caption and subsequently decides to retrieve the alternative component. An example of this is a high resolution image where the original component is protected by conditional access rights and the other component is a freely usable image at low resolution.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method of displaying a scene with effective processing of access rights. This object is achieved according to the invention by a method for searching subtitles, the subtitles comprising a subtitle search step comprising a component identification identifying a component containing content for a scene and a conditional access identification determining access rights to the component, , Determining access rights to the element, and displaying a scene containing the content of the element in accordance with the access rights. Since the conditional access identification of a given component is available from the caption itself, any actions based on the presence or absence of access rights can be taken immediately. This avoids possibly considering components at some remote locations or avoiding considering the multiplexing of components.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a program that runs a program that executes a method of displaying a scene with effective processing of access rights. This object is achieved in accordance with the present invention in a computer program product loadable into the internal memory of a digital computer, comprising software code portions for executing the steps of the method according to the invention when the product is run on a digital computer. Such a program may be obtained on a local computer by downloading the program over a network connection from a remote computer having available programs on the storage devices. This processing of downloading may be accomplished by either storing the program on a local storage device that may be loaded for later execution, or loading the program into the memory of the local computer for immediate execution. have. Further, the program can be obtained by searching it from the storage medium on which the program is executed, in which the storage medium is purchased for this purpose.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for generating subtitles that effectively process access rights to display a scene. This object is achieved according to the invention by providing a means for describing the preparation of subtitles, said subtitles comprising a first component identification identifying a first component comprising content for a scene and a conditional access identification identifying access rights for the first component, And an output means for outputting subtitles in the form of a computer program product.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method for generating subtitles that effectively process access rights to display scenes. This object is achieved according to the invention by providing a subtitle comprising a first component identification identifying a first component comprising content for a scene and a conditional access identification identifying access rights to the first component, A subtitle preparation step, and a subtitle output step in the form of a computer program product.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The invention and additional advantages will now be further explained with reference to the illustrative embodiments and the accompanying schematic drawings.

Figure 1 schematically depicts an apparatus for representing a scene in accordance with the present invention. The apparatus 100 is implemented in accordance with a known computer architecture. The apparatus has a processor 102 for executing machine instructions of a program loaded into a working memory 104. The system has an interface 106 for communicating with peripheral devices. There is a bus 108 for the exchange of commands and data between the various components of the device. Peripheral devices of the device include a storage medium 110 containing a program to be executed. The storage medium 110 may be an optical disk, a hard disk similar to a chip card or tape, or any other suitable medium. As an alternative to loading a program from the storage medium 110, the program may be downloaded via the network connection 112. The peripheral devices of the apparatus further include, among other things, a display 114 for displaying an image of the scene and a speaker 116 for reproducing the audio of the scene. The device also has an input device 118, e.g., a keyboard, for the user to enter commands.

The device may execute various functions realized by each software module. These software modules are some of the programs loaded into the work memory 104 when the device is operated by the user. The apparatus has a conditional access module 122 for determining the access rights of the various components of the subtitles and a first search module 12 for searching the subtitles of the scene to be displayed. In addition, the apparatus has a second retrieval module 124 for retrieving the required components according to the caption. The apparatus also has a display module 126 that actually displays the retrieved components and the content of the captions. There are many ways to distribute functionality through many software modules, and the above-described distribution is merely an example. For example, it is possible to combine the first search module and the second search module into one module that can search for subtitles and many components.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the subtitles and components are on a remote server computer 128 to which the device is connected via network connection 130. This server has a caption file, e.g., a caption file 134, and a storage device 132 that includes a component file, e.g., a component file 136 and a component file 138. For example, the subtitles include a second component identification 142 that identifies a first component identification 140 content that is searched for content contained in the scene, and which identifies a second component that is included in the scene. In addition, the caption includes a conditional access identification 144 for the first component, identifying the first component for the conditional access system.

The operation of the device 100 is as follows. The software modules 120-126 are loaded into the memory 104 and not all modules need to be aesthetically loaded and loading may be deferred until some of them are needed. Thereafter, typically, based on some user input, the first search module 120 retrieves the subtitles 134 from the server 128. During processing of the subtitles, it is determined that the content of component 'CMP1' is part of the content of the scene. It is also determined that the content of 'CMP1' is protected and has conditional access identification 144. Therefore, it appears that the access to the component is under the control of the conditional access system 'CA1' and its component is identified to the system by the number '123'. The conditional access module 122 determines access to the first component 136 based on this information. If the access right is granted, the second search module 124 retrieves the first component 136 from the server 128. If the access right does not grant access, the first component is not retrieved and the device can take appropriate action to cope with this situation, e.g., repositioning other components in the scene or replacing it with alternative components. The fact that an access right can be established based on the information of the caption itself makes it possible to determine such adjustment operations without delay and without considering other sources of finding conditional access identification. Retrieval of components is required even though conditional access identification finds that there is no access rights, i. E., No such rights, in a system available at the level of the server, e.g., the component itself. The present invention saves time and network bandwidth by avoiding such unnecessary component searches. Since the component files typically have a fairly large size, these savings can be quite large.

Subtitles in embodiments of the present invention are prepared according to the SMIL 1.0 specification. These multimedia languages are defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (SMIL 1.0 specification, REC-smil-19980615). In the language, the conditional access identification of the components can be easily indicated by a dedicated test attribute that causes the SMIL to be appended to the component. In addition, SMIL has a <switch> element that allows selection between two components based on an evaluation of test attributes. Part 4.3 of the SMIL 1.0 specification shows the <switch> element and shows 4.4 of the SMIL 1.0 specification. If the current user does not have rights to the original audio component, an example of some lines showing the replacement audio component and the audio component protected by the conditional access system is shown below.

<smil>

<head>

...

...

...

</ head>

<body>

...

...

<switch>

<audio src = "audio1" system-access-id = "CA1: 123" />

<audio src = "audio-replacement" system-access-id = "free: 0" />

</ whitch>

...

...

</ body>

</ smil>

If the first test attribute system-access-id is evaluated to be true, the display engine searches for these components to know that they have access rights to the audio 1 component. If the first test attribute system-access-id is evaluated to be false, then no access rights and the audio 1-alternative component is retrieved.

Fig. 2 schematically shows an apparatus for generating subtitles according to the present invention. Apparatus 200 is implemented in accordance with an architecture similar to apparatus 100. Apparatus 200 has a description module 202 that prepares subtitles 134. This caption includes a first component identification 140 identifying the first component whose content is part of a scene and a second component identification 142 identifying the second component whose content is part of the scene ). In addition, the caption includes a conditional access identification 144 for the first component identifying the first component for the conditional access system. The apparatus 200 further has an output module 204 for outputting prepared subtitles. The output subtitles may be transmitted over a network connection to another computer that may be executed or stored. In addition, the output subtitles may be stored on a local storage medium, e.g., storage medium 110. [

The subtitles contain the details of the scene. What is displayed and how it is displayed. In that regard, it includes instructions for a display program relating to the display to be made. The display engine analyzes the subtitles in a manner similar to a translator that parses the files into program instructions. Therefore, it can be said that the subtitles can be executed on the computer where the appropriate display program is loaded.

There are several ways to transfer content from the server to the client. It may be based on the request and transmission of individual files. In this case, the application of the present invention does not need to access the component files on the server to determine access rights. Another way to transfer content to a client is to transmit it as a multiplexed signal. This can be a broadcast multiplex signal, and many clients can receive a direct multiplex signal or the same signal that individual clients can request any information. In a broadcast implementation, the application of the present invention does not need to access the multiplexes of components to determine access rights. This saves resources because such a multiplex does not need to be evaluated without being decoded. In a direct implementation, the application of the present invention does not need to request a multiplex of components to determine access rights. This can save bandwidth of resources and network connections in a similar way.

It should be noted that the above-described embodiments are not limited to the present invention and that those skilled in the art can design many alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between inserted phrases should not be construed as limiting the claim. The word 'comprising' does not exclude the presence of elements and steps other than those stated in a claim. The singular representation preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements. The invention may be embodied in hardware and in a suitably programmed computer including some discrete elements. In a device claim enumerating some means, some of these means may be implemented with the same items and means of hardware.

Claims (13)

An apparatus for displaying a scene expressed in electronic form, A retrieval means for retrieving a caption, the caption including a component identification identifying a component including content for the scene, and a conditional access identification identifying access rights to the component; Conditional access determining means for determining the access rights to the component; and And display means for displaying a scene including the content of the component in accordance with the access rights. The method according to claim 1, Wherein the conditional access identification comprises a system identification that identifies a conditional access system that controls access rights of the component. The method according to claim 1, And search means for searching the content of the component in accordance with the access rights. The method of claim 3, Wherein the other retrieval means is arranged to alternatively search for the content of another component when the conditional access determining means determines that access rights to the element do not exist, and wherein the caption includes content for the scene And another component identification that identifies another component. A method of displaying a scene represented in electronic form, The subtitles comprising a component identification identifying a component comprising content for the scene and a conditional access identification identifying access rights to the component, Determining the access rights for the component, and And displaying the scene including the content of the component in accordance with the access rights. A computer program product loadable into an internal memory of a digital computer, 5. A computer program product comprising software code portions for executing the steps of claim 5 when said product is run on said digital computer. 8. A storage medium comprising the computer program product as claimed in claim 6. An apparatus for generating a subtitle, Wherein said caption comprises a component identification for identifying a component comprising content for said scene and a conditional access identification for determining access rights for said component; And output means for outputting the subtitle in the form of a computer program product. 9. The method of claim 8, Wherein said description means is arranged to prepare said subtitles in a SMIL language, and wherein said conditional access identification is described by a test attribute of SMIL. 10. The method of claim 9, Wherein the subtitles further comprise, in addition to the component identification, another component identification identifying another component comprising content for the scene, wherein the two component identifications are included as respective alternatives to a SMIL switch component, . A method for generating a subtitle, Preparing a caption, the caption comprising a component identification identifying a component including content for the scene and a conditional access identification determining access rights to the component; and And outputting the caption in the form of a computer program product. A computer program product comprising a subtitle, Wherein the caption comprises a component identification identifying a component containing content for a scene and a conditional access identification determining access rights to the component. 13. A storage medium comprising the computer program product as claimed in claim 12.