WO1997021220A1 - Procede et appareil de raccordement continu de flux de donnees numeriques - Google Patents

Procede et appareil de raccordement continu de flux de donnees numeriques Download PDF

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Publication number
WO1997021220A1
WO1997021220A1 PCT/CA1996/000798 CA9600798W WO9721220A1 WO 1997021220 A1 WO1997021220 A1 WO 1997021220A1 CA 9600798 W CA9600798 W CA 9600798W WO 9721220 A1 WO9721220 A1 WO 9721220A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
clip
current
viewer
clips
digital data
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/CA1996/000798
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Greg Caws
Eric Camirand
Alex Dobrianski
Ivan Jankovic
Original Assignee
Cinax Designs Inc.
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Cinax Designs Inc. filed Critical Cinax Designs Inc.
Priority to AU76882/96A priority Critical patent/AU7688296A/en
Publication of WO1997021220A1 publication Critical patent/WO1997021220A1/fr

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G09—EDUCATION; CRYPTOGRAPHY; DISPLAY; ADVERTISING; SEALS
    • G09B—EDUCATIONAL OR DEMONSTRATION APPLIANCES; APPLIANCES FOR TEACHING, OR COMMUNICATING WITH, THE BLIND, DEAF OR MUTE; MODELS; PLANETARIA; GLOBES; MAPS; DIAGRAMS
    • G09B5/00—Electrically-operated educational appliances
    • G09B5/06—Electrically-operated educational appliances with both visual and audible presentation of the material to be studied
    • G09B5/065—Combinations of audio and video presentations, e.g. videotapes, videodiscs, television systems
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B17/00—Guiding record carriers not specifically of filamentary or web form, or of supports therefor
    • G11B17/005—Programmed access to indexed parts of tracks of operating discs, by guiding the disc
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B19/00—Driving, starting, stopping record carriers not specifically of filamentary or web form, or of supports therefor; Control thereof; Control of operating function ; Driving both disc and head
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B19/00—Driving, starting, stopping record carriers not specifically of filamentary or web form, or of supports therefor; Control thereof; Control of operating function ; Driving both disc and head
    • G11B19/02—Control of operating function, e.g. switching from recording to reproducing
    • G11B19/06—Control of operating function, e.g. switching from recording to reproducing by counting or timing of machine operations
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B27/00—Editing; Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Monitoring; Measuring tape travel
    • G11B27/02—Editing, e.g. varying the order of information signals recorded on, or reproduced from, record carriers
    • G11B27/031—Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
    • G11B27/034—Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals on discs
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B27/00—Editing; Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Monitoring; Measuring tape travel
    • G11B27/10—Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Measuring tape travel
    • G11B27/102—Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers
    • G11B27/105—Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers of operating discs
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B2220/00—Record carriers by type
    • G11B2220/20—Disc-shaped record carriers
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G11—INFORMATION STORAGE
    • G11B—INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORD CARRIER AND TRANSDUCER
    • G11B7/00—Recording or reproducing by optical means, e.g. recording using a thermal beam of optical radiation by modifying optical properties or the physical structure, reproducing using an optical beam at lower power by sensing optical properties; Record carriers therefor
    • G11B7/004—Recording, reproducing or erasing methods; Read, write or erase circuits therefor
    • G11B7/005—Reproducing

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for seamless splicing of clips or digital data streams .
  • Interactive movies or audiovisual works are constructed of a number of clips or digital audiovisual data streams which are spliced together to produce a continuous uninterrupted audiovisual presentation in accordance with a pre-defined script which defines branching options from which the viewer may select the next clip to be viewed .
  • the movies or audiovisual works are commonly delivered on optical discs which, at the present time, can accommodate a maximum of 4.7 gigabytes. This byte size corresponds to several hours of audiovisual playback time if the data has been encoded in accordance with the MPEG standards.
  • MPEG stands for Motion Picture Expert Group which is a subcommittee of the International Standards Organization that sets standards for compression and transmission of moving pictures.
  • An optical disc read head is suspended over the disc and sweeps over the disc from a center to an outside edge thereof.
  • a delay in order to position the optical disc read head and for the MPEG decoder to initialize the decoding engine according to stream header information provided at the start of the clip.
  • Such a delay translates to a noticeable viewing delay. Anything slower than about 1/20 second in viewing delay is obvious to the viewer.
  • screen writers have put in pictures or rearranged the script to provide for a pause at the start of each clip.
  • such a requirement imposes an unnatural requirement on the writer and often results in the viewer losing interest in the movie. To date there has been no satisfactory solution to this problem.
  • the invention provides, in conjunction with a playback system, a method of viewing a plurality of clips, wherein each lip is a digital audiovisual stream containing a header and data, all of which is stored on a digital storage medium.
  • the method involves creating a script which defines clip relationships, control information and interaction parameters which provide for interaction between the viewer and the playback system, selecting a current clip and playing the current clip.
  • the method includes providing means for a viewer to select a next clip to be watched, and, in the event the viewer fails to select a next_clip to be viewed, providing default means, as defined by the script, for automatically selecting next_clip.
  • An interrupt is imposed at a pre-established jump point position in the current_clip to go to next_clip and to interchange the name of the current_clip and next_clip so that the playback system treats the next_clip as a current_clip and a playback pointer for the next_clip as a playback pointer for the current_clip.
  • the method further includes seeking back the playback pointer to the start of current_clip and repeating the playing current_clip step the subsequent steps thereafter until all viewer selected clips in the script have been played.
  • the means for a viewer to select a next clip to be viewed is determined by clip control information which forms the script.
  • the script allows the interactive movie director to define clip relationships and control information which define window of opportunity and interaction prompts for the viewer to interact with the system.
  • the digital data storage medium may be an optical disc, computer hard-drive, RAM memory, network server or other data storage device, where a clip is an audiovisual stream (header and data) .
  • a first portion of each of the clips is pre-read into buffer memory and, when playing a clip, the data corresponding to the clip is read out first from the memory buffer followed by reading the remainder of the clip from the digital data storage device.
  • an apparatus for viewing a stream of digital data stored on a digital data storage device such as optical disc, a computer hard-drive, RAM memory, network server or other storage device in the form of clips which includes selecting the clips.
  • the apparatus may include a reader for reading data from the digital data storage medium containing digital information in the form of clips with each clip having a stream header identical to that on all other clips.
  • An electronic device controls the playback of the clips .
  • Means for invoking an interrupt in the playback system at a time when the viewer interacts or the script instructs the system to jump to a next clip is provided.
  • Means for interchanging pre-buffered clip being read and a next selected clip may also be provided.
  • Means for seeking the playback pointer to a position immediately following a stream header and for resuming playing of digital data stream may also be provided.
  • FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram representing a film strip which is composed of several still images
  • FIG. 2 is a diagram showing how the clips are stored on a optical disc or computer hard-drive and showing the position of the read head;
  • FIG. 3 is schematic diagram showing a decision tree of hypothetical branching relationships between clips contained in the script of an interactive movie
  • FIG. 4 is a diagram representing the different digital data stream sources feeding the playback system as a function of time
  • FIG. 5 contains a decision tree corresponding to the algorithm used to play the clips,- and
  • FIG. 6 is a diagram representing the different components of a generic playback system.
  • FIG. 1 there is shown in schematic form as relates to a conventional film 12 a portion of a film with a number of "still" frames 14 thereon.
  • This is the form in which a movie film, stored in digital form, is retrieved and played.
  • the frames which are 1/30 seconds apart are digitized and compressed into a digital data stream and sequentially placed on a optical disc 16 as shown in Figure 2, the compressed data on the disc is stored in the form of a number of files numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. which correspond to clips in a helical pattern commencing from near the center of the disc and spiraling outwardly towards the periphery.
  • the data on the disc is read by a read head 18 which moves as shown, from the inner to the outer track in about 1/3 second.
  • the disc rotates at approximately 300 revolutions per minute (rpm) at single speed, 600 rpm at double speed but can be as high as 3000 rpm. At single speed the rate of data transfer is 150 kilobytes per second.
  • FIG. 3 there is shown the various ways in which clips could be viewed in an interactive film presentation, this clip relationship tree structure is stored in the script.
  • clip 1 is viewed first, after which either clip 2 , 3 or 4 is viewed depending upon the viewer's choice. If clip 2 is selected during the playback of that clip the viewer will have the chance to select either clip 5 or 6. If clip 4 is selected after clip 1, then clip 4 is followed by clips 9 or 10. This process continues until the end of the decision tree is reached.
  • N is a function of the digital data stream byte rate (bytes per second) and is equal to the average head seek time (or average system latency) x ⁇ digital data stream byte rate ⁇ .
  • Figure 4 shows the digital data stream sources as a function of time. Stream header information 20 is contained in the first 100 bytes of each clip which advises the decoder as to what settings to initialize.
  • a script is loaded into memory.
  • the script contains control information concerning prompting devices, defaults, windows of opportunity, clip relationships, jump points and other information.
  • This script is analyzed at step 32, and prompting devices are loaded into memory at step 3 .
  • a interrupt service routine is hooked.
  • This interrupt is a "handle-based file management interrupt", known in DOS as interrupt 21h. Messages that are addressed to the original handle-based file management interrupt routines are intercepted and are dispatched to four modified functions and one new one which are concerned with file access, input/output and interchanging file names or file handles.
  • the file access functions are merely "open file with handle” and “close file with handle” while the input/output functions are "read file or device", "move file pointer” and "swap file handle”.
  • the first N kilobytes of each clip listed in the script are loaded into memory.
  • the physical sector address on the optical disc of the 65th kilobyte for each clip is saved.
  • First the N kilobytes of the first clip which will be denoted by "current_clip" is played from the buffer at step 46 during which time the compact disc player seeks the 65th kilobyte position of the current_clip.
  • the modified interrupt service routine detects the end of the buffer and switches to the 65th kilobyte on the optical disc at step 52 and commences playing the remainder of the "current_clip" without any delay.
  • step 54 the system looks in the script to determine whether the time interval corresponding to the window of opportunity on the clip has been reached. If it has then the system goes to step 56 and displays icons, invisible hotspot, sounds or any prompting devices with which a viewer may interact to select the next clip of a given number of possible clips. After displaying the icons the system goes to step 58 to test if viewer interaction has taken place. If not, then the current_clip is continued to be played until a jump point or the end of the file has been reached. Jump points may occur during or prior to the window of opportunity. If the viewer interacts after a jump point has been detected the next clip, or the selected clip, will be presented instantaneously without any further delay.
  • step 60 determines which clip is to be played next. The result is determined by the viewer's selection, during the given window of opportunity, or the script default instructions in the event that the user did not interact.
  • the computer opens the "next_clip" .
  • step 64 the system determines if the jump point has been reached. Once the jump point has been reached, the system checks to see if the clip being read is the last clip in the script, step 66. If it is the last clip, the play is ended, if not, the current_clip is paused at step 68 and, at step 70, the new interrupt service routine is invoked.
  • the system swaps "current_clip” file handle for the "next_clip” so that the computer treats “next_clip” as though it really is “current_clip” .
  • the playback pointer which represents the current byte position in the file being read, is rewound, or seeked back, at step 76 to the start of the video stream of the current_clip , immediately after the stream header. There is no need to read the header as all headers in all of the clips are identical.
  • the first N kilobytes are read from the buffer and the remainder is read from the digital storage media as with the first clip as described above. However, if no user interaction or jump point has been encountered then the system returns to step 46 to play the next clip. The system then repeats the entire process until the last clip has been played, after which play is ended.
  • a playback system may consist of. Typically there will be a reading facility responsive to clip control information and a random access facility responsive to the playback pointer.
  • the playback system essential components would be : Storage medium 80, Memory 82, Decoding facility 84 and a I/O control system 86.
  • optical disc has been described as the medium on which the data clips are stored, any other medium could also be used such as a computer hard-drive, RAM memory, network servers or other storage device.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Educational Administration (AREA)
  • Educational Technology (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Signal Processing For Digital Recording And Reproducing (AREA)
  • Television Signal Processing For Recording (AREA)

Abstract

Cette invention concerne un procédé de visualisation de séquences provenant d'un flux de données numériques stocké sur un support d'enregistrement de données numériques tel qu'un disque optique, une unité de disque dur d'ordinateur, une mémoire RAM ou des serveurs de réseau. Ce procédé consiste à: lire une séquence en cours; prévoir un système permettant à l'utilisateur de sélectionner la séquence à visualiser suivante; imposer une interruption avant la fin de la séquence en cours pour passer à la séquence suivante; échanger les noms de la séquence en cours et de la séquence suivante; rechercher le pointeur de lecture au début de la séquence en cours renommée pour le placer immédiatement après les données d'en-tête du flux; lire la séquence en cours renommée; et, enfin, répéter l'étape d'imposition d'interruption pour passer à une séquence suivante, échanger les noms de la séquence suivante et de la séquence en cours, puis rechercher à nouveau le pointeur de lecture de la séquence en cours jusqu'à ce que toutes les séquences sélectionnées par l'utilisateur aient été lues ou que le script soit terminé.
PCT/CA1996/000798 1995-12-01 1996-11-29 Procede et appareil de raccordement continu de flux de donnees numeriques WO1997021220A1 (fr)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU76882/96A AU7688296A (en) 1995-12-01 1996-11-29 Method and apparatus for seamless splicing of digital data streams

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US56612595A 1995-12-01 1995-12-01
US08/566,125 1995-12-01

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO1997021220A1 true WO1997021220A1 (fr) 1997-06-12

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Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/CA1996/000798 WO1997021220A1 (fr) 1995-12-01 1996-11-29 Procede et appareil de raccordement continu de flux de donnees numeriques

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AU (1) AU7688296A (fr)
WO (1) WO1997021220A1 (fr)

Citations (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5161034A (en) * 1989-07-18 1992-11-03 Wnm Ventures Inc. Branching table for interactive video display
WO1993001596A1 (fr) * 1991-07-02 1993-01-21 Deutsche Thomson-Brandt Gmbh Procede de raccourcissement du temps d'acces (circuit de regulation de la piste)
EP0542377A2 (fr) * 1991-11-15 1993-05-19 Philips Electronics Uk Limited Méthode d'emmagasinage de pièces d'informations d'usager et appareil de reproduction des pièces emmagasinées
WO1994003851A1 (fr) * 1992-08-10 1994-02-17 Digital Pictures, Inc. Systeme et procede de selection parmi des flux de donnees multiples
JPH0715698A (ja) * 1991-07-29 1995-01-17 Nec Home Electron Ltd 画像再生装置
EP0653699A1 (fr) * 1993-06-03 1995-05-17 Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Appareil et procede de reproduction de donnees a partir d'un disque, procede d'enregistrement de donnees sur un disque et disque
US5434678A (en) * 1993-01-11 1995-07-18 Abecassis; Max Seamless transmission of non-sequential video segments
EP0691651A1 (fr) * 1994-07-04 1996-01-10 Sony Corporation Appareil pour la réproduction d'un milieu d'enregistrement

Patent Citations (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5161034A (en) * 1989-07-18 1992-11-03 Wnm Ventures Inc. Branching table for interactive video display
WO1993001596A1 (fr) * 1991-07-02 1993-01-21 Deutsche Thomson-Brandt Gmbh Procede de raccourcissement du temps d'acces (circuit de regulation de la piste)
JPH0715698A (ja) * 1991-07-29 1995-01-17 Nec Home Electron Ltd 画像再生装置
EP0542377A2 (fr) * 1991-11-15 1993-05-19 Philips Electronics Uk Limited Méthode d'emmagasinage de pièces d'informations d'usager et appareil de reproduction des pièces emmagasinées
WO1994003851A1 (fr) * 1992-08-10 1994-02-17 Digital Pictures, Inc. Systeme et procede de selection parmi des flux de donnees multiples
US5434678A (en) * 1993-01-11 1995-07-18 Abecassis; Max Seamless transmission of non-sequential video segments
EP0653699A1 (fr) * 1993-06-03 1995-05-17 Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Appareil et procede de reproduction de donnees a partir d'un disque, procede d'enregistrement de donnees sur un disque et disque
EP0691651A1 (fr) * 1994-07-04 1996-01-10 Sony Corporation Appareil pour la réproduction d'un milieu d'enregistrement

Non-Patent Citations (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
PATENT ABSTRACTS OF JAPAN vol. 95, no. 001 *

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Publication number Publication date
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