Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/40—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data
  • G06F16/41—Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/40—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F17/00—Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/70—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of video data
  • G06F16/74—Browsing; Visualisation therefor
  • G06F16/743—Browsing; Visualisation therefor a collection of video files or sequences
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/70—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of video data
  • G06F16/78—Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
  • G06F16/7867—Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings

Definitions

• the invention relates to a method for navigating through multimedia documents accessible using a multimedia receiver, a multimedia receiver provided with a user interface and a graphical interface.
• the invention is particularly applicable in the case where descriptive data associated with multimedia documents are available.
• a user interface uses this descriptive data to develop menus that can be displayed on a television screen, thus allowing the user to choose multimedia documents.
• Patent application FR96 / 09679 filed by the applicant describes a method for selecting television programs and a device incorporating a graphical interface allowing the user to navigate through lists of programs. The menus allow the user to know the general content of an audiovisual program and thus to select it according to his tastes.
• the descriptive data called “service information” in the standard relating to the DVB-Sl are stored in a local database and constantly updated according to the documents accessible by the user.
• the elements of the database are grouped according to certain criteria defined by the document supplier and contained in the service information such as: the subject, the language, the level of morality, etc.
• European patent application EP 1 024 437 describes a method for navigating among documents by grouping them into groups by “clustering” techniques. This request describes menus displaying groups of documents represented by textual information and calculated from a group of documents. This request describes a fairly complex navigation from one document to another and offers few navigation facilities.
• the invention proposes a new concept of dynamic navigation user interface, which offers navigation and search possibilities for multimedia documents that are more efficient and user-friendly for a user.
• the subject of the invention is a method of navigation within a set of multimedia documents in a receiver fitted with a display device, the multimedia documents are associated with descriptive data comprising classification elements for the classification of documents.
• the method is characterized in that it comprises the following consecutive steps: a) determination of a working set within the set of multimedia documents, the documents of this working set having at least one characteristic in common with a current document; b) determination of a plurality of groups within the work set, containing documents whose classification elements have similarities; c) calculation for each group of values expressing the similarity between the classification elements of a current document chosen by the user and the classification elements of the documents contained in each group; d) display of the elements of the current group containing the current document and of at least one identifier of another group having the strongest similarity value calculated in step c); e) reception of a navigation command to change the current document (3.9) triggering a new execution of steps a), b) c) and d).
• the method makes it possible to develop a new navigation structure following an order made by the user.
• the browser displays groups of documents on the screen so that the user can either change documents and in this case, see the groups of documents close to this new document, or navigate among these groups. Navigation is thus facilitated by the fact that the display offers both documents close to the current document, and groups of documents having similarities with the current document.
• the method comprises a step of filtering accessible documents, the documents thus filtered having at least one characteristic common to the current document.
• the step of determining the groups takes into account only a limited number of documents which makes it possible to speed up the processing.
• the number of documents filtered is preferably determined.
• the number of documents in each group is less than a value determined in advance.
• the method includes a step of developing identifiers for each group, the display step presenting all the documents of the group containing the current document, and the other groups by their identifiers.
• the group identifier is the title of the document most representative of the group.
• a variant consists in that the identifier is calculated from the classification elements of all the documents of the group.
• the method comprises a step of correspondence between words extracted from the descriptive data and at least one subject. This step replaces the supplier's descriptive data of events by a subject using a table whose content is specific to each receiver.
• the request making it possible to develop the different groups of documents takes into account the profile of the user. In this way, the documents offered during navigation are better suited to the user.
• the invention also relates to a multimedia receiver comprising a central unit, a means for receiving multimedia documents and descriptive data, said descriptive data containing classification elements for classifying documents according to categories, a means of introduction. of a user command for selecting a current document, characterized in that it comprises: a means for determining a plurality of groups of documents whose classification elements have similarities, a means for calculating the values representing the similarity between the classification elements of the current document and all of the classification elements of the documents constituting each group, a means of displaying a representation of the current group containing the identifiers of the documents of the group and a representation of at least one other group with the greatest similarity value, a means of navigating ation for selecting another current document and activating the determination means, the calculation means, and the display means to bring up groups other than previously determined from the new current document.
• the receiver has a document filtering means making it possible to keep only a set of documents having at least one descriptive datum common with the current document.
• the number of filtered documents is predetermined.
• the receiver includes a means of determining the identifiers of each group, these identifiers being determined from the descriptive data of the group's documents and displayed near the representation of the groups thus identified.
• the identifier of each group is the title of the document most representative of the group.
• a variant of this improvement consists in that the identifier is calculated from at least part of the classification elements of all the documents of the group.
• the receiver has a means of correspondence between at least one word extracted from the descriptive data and at least one subject. In this way, the receiver replaces descriptive data with subjects extracted from the receiver's memory.
• the receiver has a means of memorizing a profile of the user.
• the means of calculating similarity values taking into account the profile of the user, the groups are better adapted to the tastes of the user.
• the invention also relates to a graphical interface for the selection and presentation of audiovisual programs, characterized in that it comprises a plurality of closed and identifiable graphical forms, each graphical form representing a group of elements and containing a list of identifiers of elements having at least one characteristic common among a set of characteristics, a so-called "central" graphic form containing a so-called "current” element, both being highlighted, the distance between each graphic form and the central graphic form being inversely proportional to the degree of similarity between the characteristics of the elements of the group and the characteristics of the current element.
• the size of the graphic forms is proportional to the degree of similarity between the characteristics of the elements of the group and the characteristics of the current element.
• the graphic forms constitute an open ellipse.
• the central graphic form presents the list of identifiers of all its elements.
• FIG. 2 is a graph for the representation of documents according to a grouping calculation
• FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of the main steps carried out by the browser
• FIGS. 4a, 4b, 4c are diagrams of screen appearances generated by the browser
• FIGS. 5a, 5b, 5c are other examples of screen appearances generated by the browser.
• the receiver comprises a central unit 3 connected to a program memory 12, and an interface 5 for communication with a bus high speed local digital 6 for transmitting audio / video data in real time.
• This network is for example an IEEE 1 394 network.
• the receiver can also receive audio / video data from a broadcasting network through a reception antenna associated with a demodulator 4.
• the receiver also comprises an infrared signal receiver 7 to receive the signals from a remote control 8, a memory 9 for storing a database, and an audio / video decoding logic 10 for the generation of audiovisual signals sent to the television screen 2.
• the remote control has the direction keys 1 ⁇ , -> and - and the keys: "OK" and "Select” whose function we will see later.
• the receiver also includes a circuit 11 for displaying data on the screen, often called an OSD circuit, from the English "On Screen Display” (literally meaning "display on the screen”).
• the OSD circuit 1 1 is a generator of text and graphics which makes it possible to display menus on the screen, pictograms (for example, a number corresponding to the displayed channel) and which makes it possible to display the navigation menus in accordance with the present invention.
• the OSD circuit is controlled by the Central Unit 3 and a browser 12.
• the browser 12 is advantageously produced in the form of a program module recorded in a read only memory. It can also be produced in the form of a specialized circuit of the ASIC type for example.
• the digital bus 6 and / or the broadcasting network transmit to the receiver data comprising multimedia documents and descriptive data of these documents. These data come either from a broadcasting network or from the digital network 6.
• the descriptive data include elements of classification also called "attributes", accessible multimedia documents.
• the descriptive data is for example contained in the service information specified in the DVB-SI standard. These data are stored in the memory database 9 of the receiver and are continuously updated. The browser then extracts the information from this database and processes it to create the navigation menus displayed on the screen.
• the browser takes into account five types of attributes contained in the descriptive data: the language, the theme, the sub-theme, the source and the producer.
• attributes set by the document provider to classify available documents: language: English, French, German, Italian, Arabic, others; theme: film, information, documentary, sport, game / show; sub-theme: • film: ⁇ adventure, drama, erotic, detective, fiction, other ⁇ ;
• the receiver also takes into account the title and the summary which are contained in identified fields of descriptive data.
• the title and the summary consist of strings that can be processed digitally.
• the title of the film "The Teeth of the Sea” contains the significant words “teeth” and "Sea”. The meaning of these words generally makes it possible to identify one or more subject (s) addressed in the document.
• the receiver filters the strings by retaining only the significant words. Filtering is done using a list of words that have specific semantic content. If a word from the title or abstract is present in the list, then it is retained, otherwise it is not taken into account.
• the receiver associates a sixth type of attribute called “Title and summary” with the five previously mentioned to classify each document.
• the filtering makes it possible to extract one or more attributes according to a list specific to the receiver. It should be noted that such a filtering can eliminate all the attributes, in this case this type of attributes is not taken into account.
• An improvement consists in that these words are substituted for subjects thanks to a dictionary.
• the subjects of a document make it possible to classify a document using predefined attributes specific to the receiver and which can be entered by the user.
• the subjects differ from descriptive data such as the theme or the sub-theme, the latter being defined by the broadcaster.
• the dictionary consists of a correspondence table which associates with an attribute or an attribute list, a subject or a list of subjects.
• the table contains for example a list of 50,000 common words, this list also makes it possible to perform the filtering function previously described. Such a list can contain words from different languages, and thus translate them into words understandable by the user.
• the subjects extracted from the dictionary are associated with this document in place of some of the attributes provided by the broadcaster. All the subjects extracted from the dictionary from the content of the title and the summary are grouped in the same list characterizing the document at the level of the attribute type "title and summary”. Take the particularly simple case of a film title such as "The Teeth of the Sea”.
• the dictionary associates the following subjects with “teeth”: “anatomy”, “animals”, “horror”; and to "Sea” the subjects: “Sea”, “Travel”, “boat”, “adventure”.
• the film “The Teeth of the Sea” therefore has, for a given receiver, the following eight attributes: anatomy, animals, horror; Sea, travel, boat, adventure.
• the summary of this film contains the words: beach, swimmer, boat, fisherman.
• the dictionary associates "Sea", which is the common subject associated with the four words. We can therefore see that using the dictionary makes it possible to increase or decrease the number of words associated with a document.
• the receiver uses the attributes provided by the six attribute classes to calculate a coordinate ⁇ XX 2 , X 3 , X, X 5 , X 6 ⁇ in multidimensional space.
• the number of dimensions of this space is that of the number of identifiable attributes. Coordinates are calculated by assigning numeric values to document attributes. From a set of documents and their attributes, it is possible to draw a graph where each document is represented by a "document / point" whose coordinates are ⁇ X 1 f X 2 , ... X.
• the technique for calculating coordinates ⁇ XX 2 , ... X is well known per se.
• American patent US 5,835,087 filed by Messrs. Herz, Eisner and Ungar shows such techniques.
• the coordinates ⁇ XX 2 , ... X make it possible to graphically represent the position of the documents / points according to the similarity of their attributes.
• the distances between the documents / points are all the smaller the greater the similarity between their attributes.
• the distance can be calculated Euclideanly as the sum of the squares of the differences on each dimension.
• the distance value is in any case inversely proportional to the degree of similarity of the attributes.
• FIG. 2 shows a graphic representation of a set of documents / points in the case where the calculation of the coordinates takes into account only two classes of attributes, the representation being able then to be carried out using a plan.
• the browser determines the current document. This document is, for example, the last document selected when the browser was last disabled. If the browser was previously used as an electronic program guide broadcast, the current document at launch is the event being broadcast on the last service selected.
• step 3.2 the browser reads all accessible documents from memory and determines a set of work centered around the current document.
• This working set contains for example all the documents having at least two attributes in common with the current document.
• the work package allows you to limit the number of documents for which complex calculations will then be carried out.
• An improvement consists in calculating the number of attributes in common so as to obtain a predetermined number of documents in the working set. For example, the working set must contain around a hundred documents, which makes it possible to carry out the complex calculations which will then be carried out in a reasonable time. If with two attributes in common, the work set contains three hundred documents, the browser recalculates the set taking into account three attributes in common. As long as the number of documents is not close to that predetermined, the browser repeats the step by increasing by one the number of attributes in common.
• the browser defines groups using the previously described grouping technique. Grouping is done using the attributes of the documents in the work set, and does not take into account the current document.
• the criterion for group creation is the number of elements, this number depends on the display capacities. According to the present embodiment, the number of documents per group is fixed at four. It is very possible that the same point / document belongs to several groups, this document will then appear in several places.
• step 3.4 the browser calculates the degree of similarity between each group and the group containing the current document, the latter being the "current group". This calculation makes it possible to determine the close groups.
• the determination can be made in different ways. A first way is to calculate the barycenter of the documents / points of each group determined in step 3.3, and to calculate the distances between the current document / point and each barycenter. Close groups are those for which the calculated distances are closest. A second way of doing this is to concatenate all the attributes of the documents in each group and to count the number of attributes identical to those of the current document.
• the browser chooses a certain number of close groups, according to the present exemplary embodiment: four close groups. The fact that some of these groups are closer than others will be taken into account in the display.
• the browser prepares the display, it chooses a central group which is the current group (step 3.5). Then in step 3.6, the browser displays the five groups on the screen.
• Figures 4a, 4b and 4c show examples of aspects of the screen when it is controlled by the browser. Document groups appear in round shapes, the five groups forming an open ellipse. The screen always displays the same predetermined number of groups, five according to the present example.
• the central group is in the foreground in the center, the four close groups are on each side of the central group. All the documents of the central group are indicated by their titles, the current document is highlighted by an underline, a bold type, a special color or a flashing.
• the two groups in the background are considered to be less close (according to the calculation carried out in step 3.4) than the two groups in the background, that is to say that the documents they contain have attributes that are less similar than the first two groups.
• the open nature of the ellipse expresses the fact that groups other than the five represented exist but are not represented. In fact these unrepresented groups are inserted between the group in the background on the left and that in the background on the right.
• the central group displays its elements, the other four groups which appear in the background are only identified by a symbol and do not display their elements.
• This symbol can be a character string or a graphic.
• the character string is the title of the document whose coordinates ⁇ XX 2 , ... X in the group are the closest to those of the central point of the group.
• the character string is formed by associating the most significant and / or most often repeated words in the attributes of the documents of the group considered.
• step 3.7 When the user launches a navigation command using the right and left keys (step 3.7), the ellipse formed by the five round shapes rotates in the side indicated, and the group located to the left or right of the central one is placed in the center and becomes the central group (step 3.8).
• the browser returns to step 3.6.
• the titles of the elements of the new central group are displayed.
• the user can at any time put highlight a document from the central group by moving using the "T" and ⁇ keys. During a rotation, the document highlighted in the central group is the first in the list. The current document is not affected by the direction commands ( ⁇ -, -_>, and ⁇ ).
• the browser loops back to step 3.2 and recalculates all the groups and in particular the four close groups appearing on the screen, which entail a new calculation of the identifiers of the four groups displayed.
• the user will walk around gradually.
• the receiver recalculates a new set of work.
• the OSD has three-dimensional functions which make it possible to give the user the impression of navigating in a document space, and not in a simple map.
• the invention is not limited to the execution of the various steps described above following a user command. Other events such as, for example, the automatic awakening of the receiver, the reception of new descriptive data, or the reception of an order from the document supplier to display a new graphical interface, can trigger the various stages of the process, and activate the means responsible for implementing them.
• Figures 5.a, 5.b and 5.c show three appearances obtained following navigation commands according to another embodiment.
• the screen in Figure 3. a is displayed. It shows a group containing three attributes, which in the example are document sources. The user using the direction arrows ⁇ and t will highlight one of these attributes and, using the "OK" key, select it. Following this command, the browser will calculate the working set of documents and calculate groups reduced to a document. In the example, the user selects the source "Warner On Line”. The screen shown in Figure 5.b then appears. The browser shows on the left side of the screen four documents corresponding to the query based on "Warner On Line". The document "Teeth of the Sea" is current, its selection is made for example in alphabetical order. On the right side of the screen, the browser offers other groups associated with identifiers. The identifiers of the proposed groups have at least one common characteristic with the document.
• the identifiers are in the example:
• the user moves from one column to another using the ⁇ - and - »keys and walks within a column using the and ⁇ keys.
• the user can select the current document with the "OK" key and start viewing it by pressing the "Select” key.
• he wishes to continue his navigation and selects the group identified by "Sharks" in the right column.
• Figure 5.c then appears.
• the left column shows a list of documents related to the previously selected attribute. In this case, the request is based on the presence of a certain word in the summary and / or the title.
• the titles of four documents which are in the selected group are displayed.
• all four documents contain the word “Sharks” in the title.
• the first "The Sharks, these misunderstood” is highlighted, the right column presents a list of groups linked to this document.
• the source “The Documentary Channel”
• the producer “Crocodile Dundee”
• the theme “animal documentary”. The user can use the four arrow keys to move from one column to another.
• An improvement consists in taking into account the profile of the user. It can be taken into account when calculating the work package (in step 3.2). Thus, documents which have a certain number of attributes in common with the central document, are more often taken in the working set. As a variant, the taking into account is made during the determination of close groups. For example, the browser uses to determine the documents close by comparing the distances between the different barycenters and the current document / point. It has been said previously that the coordinates of each point / document are calculated by assigning numerical values to the attributes of the documents. A bonus is granted to each document of which at least one attribute corresponds to the profile of the user.
• the proximity of a group to the current document takes into account the distance from the position of the central document but also the number of bonuses that the group contains. For example, if the center point of a first group is located 1, 2 times the distance of a second group but if the first group contains 3 more bonuses than the second, then it is the first group which is represented background. Similarly, if the center point of a first group is located 1.8 times the distance of a second group which has no bonus while the first group has nine, then the first group is represented in background.
• d1 be the distance of a first group and d2 the distance of a second group
• the relative distance of one group compared to the other is:
• This equation shows the preponderance of the similarity of attributes with the current document rather than the correspondence with the user profile. Such an equation prevents a group containing only documents corresponding to the profile of the user from being systematically declared close whereas it is not if the attributes of its documents are taken into account.
• a variant of using the user profile consists in analyzing the last selections of the user, the last twenty for example.
• the twenty documents or attributes selected are concatenated to form the user's profile.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
• Data Mining & Analysis (AREA)
• Software Systems (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Library & Information Science (AREA)
• Mathematical Physics (AREA)
• Information Retrieval, Db Structures And Fs Structures Therefor (AREA)
• User Interface Of Digital Computer (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=8861200

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (8)

Families Citing this family (48)

Family Cites Families (9)

• 2001
  • 2001-03-16 FR FR0103576A patent/FR2822261A1/fr active Pending
• 2002
  • 2002-03-15 US US10/472,064 patent/US20040139064A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2002-03-15 MX MXPA03008289A patent/MXPA03008289A/es active IP Right Grant
  • 2002-03-15 KR KR1020037011915A patent/KR100929151B1/ko active IP Right Grant
  • 2002-03-15 CN CN02806694A patent/CN100583088C/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2002-03-15 EP EP02718258A patent/EP1368756A1/de not_active Ceased
  • 2002-03-15 JP JP2002574527A patent/JP4451598B2/ja not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2002-03-15 WO PCT/FR2002/000921 patent/WO2002075591A1/fr active Application Filing

Non-Patent Citations (1)

Also Published As

Similar Documents

Legal Events