Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q30/00—Commerce
  • G06Q30/06—Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• • 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
  • G06F16/43—Querying
  • G06F16/435—Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
  • G06F16/437—Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialisation, adaptation, distribution

Definitions

• This invention relates to a method for synchronising digital media content.
• Synchronisation of data from one computing device to another is considered to be a simple procedure of examining two sets of files and copying files between the two devices according to which was most recently modified, with the added requirement for recording the file structure at the time of the last synchronisation in order to detect and handle deletions and, in more sophisticated approaches, file moving and renaming.
• the invention is a method for synchronising digital media content to a device, comprising the following steps:
• the synchronisation approach adopted in an implementation by the present invention is therefore to consider each media playback device to be a repository for a subset of the user's overall media content collection. Rather than attempting to synchronise the entire media content collection with every device, which is what traditionally is meant by device synchronisation, a more intelligent approach may then be adopted, permitting specific portions of the user's collection to be supplied to specific devices based on an analysis of the user's "taste signature" and, in a specific implementation, the interactions with his media content collection together with the specific device's capabilities and an analysis of the user's interactions with that device.
• What is provided by the present invention is therefore a mechanism for analysing the consumer's existing tastes and using the results of that analysis to identify both media content which is likely to appeal to that individual and also like-minded individuals who share some or all of that individual's taste in media content.
• music and “media content” in this document are to be taken to encompass all “media content” which is in digital form or which it is possible to convert to digital form - including but not limited to books, magazines, newspapers and other periodicals, video in the form of digital video, motion pictures, television shows (as series, as seasons and as individual episodes), images (photographic or otherwise), music, computer games and other interactive media.
• track indicates a specific item of media content, whether that be a song, a television show, an eBook or portion thereof, a computer game or any other discreet item of media content.
• playlist and "album” are used interchangeably to indicate collections of “tracks” which have been conjoined together such that they may be treated as a single entity for the purposes of analysis or recommendation.
• the verb "to listen” is to be taken as encompassing any interaction between a human and media content, whether that be listening to audio content, watching video or image content, reading books or other textual content, playing a computer game, interacting with interactive media content or some combination of such activities.
• the terms “user”, “consumer”, “end user” and “individual” are used interchangeably to refer to the person, or group of people, whose media content "listening" preferences are analysed and for whom recommendations are made.
• taste is used to refer to a user's media content "listening" preferences.
• a user's “taste signature” is a computer-readable description of a user's taste, as derived during the process disclosed for the present invention.
• media collection and “music collection” and similar terms are used interchangeably to refer to an actual or notional set of "music tracks” which are owned by the user either directly - in the form of physical media or downloaded or encoded digital media files - or indirectly, such as by being bookmarked as “favourite” tracks or within playlists or by some other mechanism in a music subscription service or an media content catalogue. Any media content which is directly linked to the user by such mechanisms is considered to be part of that user's "music collection”.
• device and “media player” are used interchangeably to refer to any computational device which is capable of playing digital media content, including but not limited to MP3 players, television sets, home computer systems, mobile computing devices, games consoles, handheld games consoles, vehicular-based media players or any other applicable device or software media player on such a device.
• the present invention discloses a mechanism whereby the media content (e.g. "music listening") preferences of an individual may be analysed and the analysis be used to optimise the process of synchronising that user's device or devices with the user's music collection.
• the music collection may reside as a 'master' set on one or more devices, or be held on the cloud, or may be distributed across various devices and the cloud so that no single device includes a master set.
• this invention deals with optimising the process of synchronising a user's device with media content held on the 'media store'.
• Figure 1 of the drawings is a flow chart of the overall synchronisation process.
• Figure 2 shows the playlist reconstruction process
• one or more of the techniques disclosed in this section may be used to identify a set of media content which is directly or indirectly linked to the device, and the owner thereof, which is to be synchronised.
• the said set, the user's "music collection”, is thus identified, in the preferred embodiment, both in its particulars and in its metadata, to the broadest extent possible.
• the content of the user's device must be examined to search for media content, looking in all common storage locations, including but not limited to one or more of the following:
• Media player local databases for all identifiable media players which are installed on the device, such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, VLC Player, DivX Player and so forth. For those players which maintain a database of media files, that database may be queried; for those player which maintain a "recently used files" list, that list may be inspected.
• Physical media such as media content stored on CDs, DVDs or other storage media owned by the user, may be examined as to their contents.
• Online media stores Users are able to store media content online, whether explicitly by storing actual files or indirectly by storing metadata describing files or by some combination of the two. Users may be prompted to identify and provide access to such online stores as they wish to include in the analysis, such as MySpace®, Last.fm®, Flickr®, Facebook®, Spotify®, Amazon® or any other online facility which permits the store or description of media content by end users.
• device sweep When performing this "device sweep” it is important to exclude from the analysis any standard “preview” media content which is included with a device or media player, since such content is not indicative of the specific user's taste and therefore, with the possible exception of any such content which is specific to the service within which the present invention is being utilised, little to no purpose may be served by provisioning such content to the user's device(s).
• the term “device sweep” should not be interpreted as being limited to an analysis of a single device - in fact it includes a sweep of all devices and locations where relevant media files may be stored - i.e. all devices owned or accessed by the user (his 'media store') and also the media stores of others too - for example, friends who make recommendations to the user.
• the purpose of the "device sweep” is to gather information about the user's existing media content and their listening preferences with respect to that media content - i.e. a "taste signature". For that reason, the sweep needs to accumulate a considerable body of metadata concerning the media content files found.
• metadata may take several forms, including but not limited to one or more of the following:
• Tags on media files including explicitly embedded tags, such as ID3 tags used in MP3 files; associative tags, such as album artwork associated image files used by media players such as iTunes; and metadata stored in a media player's database, such as the genre classification of a track.
• Physical media such as media content stored on CDs, DVDs or other storage media owned by the user, may be examined as to their contents. For example, in one embodiment a user may be permitted to make an audio CD available to software which implements the present invention, whereupon the said CD could be read and its identifying signature matched against a database of such signatures in order to identify the track listing and associated metadata for that CD.
• Playback metrics where available. Some media players, such as iTunes and Windows Media Player, are capable of storing details of when, how often and for how long individual media content files have been played. In addition, some file systems provide clues to playback metrics - for example, by default NTSF stores a "last access time" against files which may be used as an indicator as to when a particular track was last played by the user.
• DSP Digital Signal Processing
• Track identification technology such as TrackID or some other media content signature generation technology
• TrackID may be applied to each track to generate a digital "signature" which can then be matched against a database of such signatures in order to identify the specific track, as a cross-check of other metadata and/ or as a method of identifying tracks for which incomplete, corrupt or no metadata is located.
• Metadata relating to the digital media collection includes one or more of the following, whether or not that metadata is user-generated: titles; authors; composers; singers; publishers; genres; classifications; date-related information, including release dates; the locations of the digital media files; links between media, including playlists containing one or more digital media files; ratings; embedded tags; associated artwork; playback metrics; the duration of the digital media file; the size of the file, however measured; the file format; or any other descriptive metadata related to the digital media file.
• the metadata for each track may also, in the preferred embodiment, be enriched by reference to a more comprehensive database against which metadata may be matched and additional information about each track retrieved.
• Metadata may also have been obtained from the user's previously- registered device(s).
• previously-stored metadata is also, in the preferred embodiment, consolidated with the data obtained from the "device sweep" and the resultant collection of data used for analysis.
• the user's own metadata package may be augmented by those of his linked friends, suitably weighted to ensure that any recommendations made are primarily based upon this user's own media rather than that of his linked friends.
• the weighting given to a user's linked friends' media content is configurable according to the type of linked friend.
• the preferred embodiment would, when making recommendations, consolidate the linked friends' metadata to the user's such that the weight given to the user's metadata is (100 - N - M)%, the weighting given to each "close friend” is (N/n)% and that to each "linked friend” (M/m)%. Where n or m are zero, the relevant component (N or M respectively) is omitted. Thus, a user with no close or linked friends would have his recommendations entirely based upon his own available media content.
• the device type may also be used, in the preferred embodiment, as a source of metadata, as may other information such as the location of the user (to whatever granularity is available, from the user's country to their precise location as obtained via GPS or some measure in between the two, such as IP address analysis.
• “device” may refer to a specific device or to a class of devices of a defined type, such as "portable game consoles” or “devices which can play DivX video” or “Games Console Model PQT- 4381v2.12" or “devices which incorporate a BluRay player”).
• Such information may be used to provide a demographic profile of purchasers/ users of specific devices and/or inhabitants of given locales. To take a trivial example, such information would be used in one example embodiment to tend to recommend Spanish- language tracks or tracks which are popular in Spain to those users who are in that country. Hence, on synchronisation, those Spanish tracks could be given priority. So if a tourist were to be visiting Spain, then he might find that relatively little known Spanish tracks were given priority during synchronisation.
• demographic information can, in the preferred embodiment, be obtained from a recommendations database which stores analyses of the musical preferences of all users of the service organised according to device type and/ or location.
• Device-specific metadata stored in the preferred embodiment includes information as to which tracks are most popular amongst users of a particular device in a particular region, with cross-references relating the demographics of average users of such devices to the popularity of tracks of users with such demographics (for example, where the average user of a particular device in the UK is determined to be an 18-25 year old male then the default tracks recommended for a user of that device, where no more specific information is available from a device sweep, would be those tracks which are generally popular on the service amongst 18-25 year old males in the UK).
• the user's device (and their associated media store) is re-swept to locate new or updated media content and/or metadata at regular intervals which, in the preferred embodiment, are of configurable duration. Any changes detected are then used to provide more relevant updates.
• sundry additional factors may also be utilised, in the preferred embodiment, to influence recommendations given to the user and hence influence synchronisation priority.
• such factors include, but are not limited to:
• an automated or manual analysis of articles, online or otherwise, about multimedia content may indicate a strong correlation between two or more artists, tracks or other related metadata. Such correlations may similarly feed into the recommendations process.
• the disclosure of the present invention has been concerned with individual users rather than groups of users.
• the preferred embodiment consolidates the metadata of individuals within each group into a single collection of metadata and makes use of that combined metadata for analysis and recommendation purposes.
• That consolidation in the preferred embodiment, is performed in two stages:
• this may occur where there are no identifiable media files on the device and this user has not previously registered a device with the service within which the present invention is being utilised and the user has no linked friends within that service (or no such registered devices or linked friends can be identified due to, for example, a poor quality or absent network connection).
• recommendations may still be made based on demographic metadata alone, as disclosed above in "Demographics as Metadata”.
• such "blank device profiles" are regularly pre-calculated for appropriate locales (such as countries or regions within a country or whatever other granularity is required) to assist with loading recommendations for new blank devices of that type.
• Such items may, in an example embodiment, be referred to the user for later definitive identification.
• unidentified items may be tagged by the system for further analysis at a later point.
• Such unidentified media content may also, nonetheless, be synchronised across the user's device(s).
• the said unidentified content would be transcoded (converted as to their media content encoding format) to file formats appropriate to the user's other device(s), where necessary, and the transcoded versions of the said files transferred to a location from which they may be provisioned to the said other devices.
• the process may be inverted - that is, the files transferred to a storage location where they are then transcoded to suitable formats, if necessary, before being made available for provisioning to the user's other device(s).
• the said storage facility is, in the preferred embodiment, both remotely located and accessible via a network connection (such as the internet or a wireless network) to the user's device(s) AND the said stored content is "locked" (by encryption or some other suitable approach) to ensure that only the originating user is permitted access to that stored content.
• a network connection such as the internet or a wireless network
• One example embodiment may identify where unidentified files from different users actually encode the same media content and use that information as an aid to identifying files, by ensuring that if/ when one such media content file is positively identified then other such files are automatically also identified, tagged with the appropriate metadata and relocated, where possible within the applicable licensing laws and agreements, from the secure storage facility (the "locker") to more general usage.
• One example embodiment may identify where unidentified files from different users actually encode the same media content and use that information to avoid duplication of content within the "locker” by making the same file available to both users, where the applicable law permits such action to be taken.
• the present invention In addition to analysing the user's music collection to derive a metadata based "taste signature", in the preferred embodiment the present invention also analyses the way in which the user interacts with that device, in terms of the specific user under consideration and/ or in terms of the average user of such a device.
• channels as disclosed above
• the user's interactions with media content on those other devices may be used as additional metadata to weight recommendations for the current device.
• synchronisation events are automatically switched off after a configurable period of lack of application use and/ or content playback. Automatic synchronisation is automatically restarted on next application use and will remain in place until the user becomes "stale" again.
• an analysis of metadata about the user comprises one or more of the user's: age; location; income; religious beliefs or absence thereof; political leanings; education level; occupation; gender; sexuality; social class classification, however defined or derived; hobbies; other devices used by the user; the user's interactions with one or more devices; or any other relevant metadata concerning the user.
• the present invention also takes account, in its preferred embodiment, of the capabilities of the device. Elements considered include one or more of the following:
• a given track is located in different parts of the user interface of the device simultaneously (for example, if the said track appears in multiple channels within the device's user interface) then, in the preferred embodiment, that track may be weighted for recommendation purposes in order to ensure that the device's user interface is populated as rapidly as possible.
• Different devices have capabilities as to the format of media content files which they are able to play. For example, if a device has a screen display with a resolution of 200x150 then providing that device with a video at a much higher resolution would be profligate, hence any provisioned video would, in the preferred embodiment, first be transcoded to suit the device's capabilities.
• devices vary as to the file formats which they are capable of handling and the DRM protection systems which they are able to employ. In the preferred embodiment, the present invention maintains such device capability metadata and ensures that the appropriate format is used to provision each device type.
• the storage capacity of the device is also a factor in determining how much data can be transferred to the said device.
• recommendations produced by the analysis discussed in this document (and detailed in Omnifone Patent Application "Nearest Neighbour & Digital Content Recommendation Techniques" PCT/GB2010/051113 or by any other compatible mechanisms may, in the preferred embodiment, be used to determine the order in which media content may be removed from the device and replaced with new media content.
• a device is capable of reporting useful information about its environment then that information may be utilised to assist in the scheduling of synchronisation, where applicable. For example, in the preferred embodiment where a device reports that it is currently in its docking or charging station then synchronisation of large files may be undertaken on the basis that in such a state the device is likely to remain consistently connected to the network for a considerable period of time. • Where a device is battery-powered and is able to report the battery status to the client application then, in the preferred embodiment, synchronisation may be performed only if the battery life is above a certain, customisable threshold.
• the device's location - where available via such mechanisms as IP address translation, GPS positioning, user reported location or other appropriate mechanisms - may be used to weight recommendations made as well as to assist in determining the type and speed of network connection available to the device where such data is not otherwise available.
• playback metrics obtained from analysing the ways in which the user interacts with the device to be synchronised and those playback metrics include metadata detailing one or more of: when the user has played or viewed the digital media file; where the user has played or viewed the digital media file; on which device or devices the user has played or viewed the digital media file; when the digital media file was made available to the user; how often the user has played or viewed the digital media file or any other metadata concerning the user's interactions with the digital media file.
• the properties of a particular device's network connection are utilised, in the preferred embodiment, to influence recommendations (based, for example, on file size) and/or determine the timing as to when synchronisation takes place.
• Elements considered, in the preferred embodiment include one or more of:
• the bandwidth available to a device is a consideration when determining the size of files which may be provisioned to that device, and hence may be used to weight recommendations in favour of smaller files (whether in terms of shorter lengths or more efficient encoding techniques which are more appropriate for a given device) where necessary
• the Back Channel of the bearer signal may, in the preferred embodiment, be utilised to send data to the server of whichever service within which the present invention is being utilised.
• connection history of a device may be used to influence scheduling of synchronisation.
• user movement may be detectable via analysis of the device's connection history by, in one embodiment, an analysis of the IP address (es) reported by the device to a media content server over time.
• IP address es
• a mobile device may show a pattern of connecting to a particular wireless network for a significant period of several hours followed by connections to various other wi-fi networks for varying periods and then a return to the original wireless network.
• Metadata concerning network congestion (resulting in slow or unreliable connections) in the locale within which the device is operating may be both directly measured and inferred based on locale, network provider and time zone data.
• connection time may be used to augment user-specific data where appropriate.
• connection history data may be used to augment user-specific data where appropriate.
• the device has a reliable network connection only at specific times of day, as determined from statistical data and/ or analysis of the connection activity of a specific user.
• synchronisation - downloads, uploads or both - of larger files may be deferred (using, in the preferred embodiment, a download queue system) until a specifically scheduled time rather than happening on an ad hoc basis throughout the day.
• any playlists identified during the device sweep disclosed earlier would be reconstructed within the service within which the present invention is utilised.
• playlist files such as those in the form of *.M3U and *.pls and *.wpl files or any other appropriate playlist file format, would be duplicated, in the MusicStation Platform which forms one embodiment of the present invention, under the individual user's profile. That process is illustrated in Figure 2.
• demographically- derived metadata is, in the preferred embodiment, utilised in order to ensure that a set of media content is available for provisioning to the user's device even in the case where this is a new user with an empty device (as disclosed previously in this document, in the "Empty Devices" section).
• the service within which the present invention is utilised may categorise media content into separate "channels", as disclosed in detail in Omnifone Patent application: Channels and Radio stations PCT/GB2010/050771.
• the user's preference for particular "channels” may be used to prioritise the downloading of - and, in the preferred embodiment, to weight the recommendations for - new media content, in combination with one or more of the other user-device interaction analyses, such as those disclosed in "Analyse User-Device Interaction" earlier.
• such "channels" would be pre-populated with metadata and tracks where possible, the determination as to which are to be pre-emptively cached being based on one or more of the overall recommendations for the user, the type of network connection available, demographic data and editorial considerations, such as how to ensure that channels are populated evenly given the analysis already disclosed as to the user's listening preferences.
• the end user would utilise the user interface of their client device to search for available channels and to subscribe to those channels in which he is interested (and to unsubscribe from channels to which he has previously been subscribed).
• the said user is permitted to maintain different sets of subscribed channels, with zero, one or more such channels sets being device-specific, permitting the said user to subscribe to, for example, different channels on each of his registered devices.
• That user's registered client devices are, in the preferred embodiment, automatically updated with new content consistent with that channel's definition for the said user and the said device.
• the initial selection of which channels to present— and, in the preferred embodiment, pre-load with some or all of that channel's defined content - to a given user on a given device is, in the preferred embodiment, made in a similar manner, mutatis mutandis, as for the mechanism used to provide track recommendations on the service within which the channels are utilised.
• the said initial selection of channels is made manually.
• Channel- specific content is, in the preferred embodiment, stored securely on the client device using DRM protection appropriate to that device, and the synchronisation process for a channel includes the removal of stale channel content from the said device in order to free storage space for new channel content.
• Pre-Emptive caching of content Which additional track recommendations are to be provisioned to the device. In the preferred embodiment, this is determined based on the overall recommendations analysis disclosed earlier.
• synchronisation occurs as continuously as a device's connection type permits.
• data is transmitted by "piggybacking" onto communications which would have happened anyway.
• a device sends a "polling" communication to the server (of the service within which the present invention is utilised) at regular intervals.
• other data such as track playback metrics or metadata resulting from the device sweep disclosed earlier— will be sent simultaneously, thus making more efficient use of the available bandwidth.
• digital media files can be provided periodically to the device as collections of files divided by genre, by recommendation, by artist, by popularity or in any other fashion.
• the order in which digital media files are provided to the device is determined by an analysis of the metadata concerning one or more of the user, the user's "taste signature", recommendations obtained for the user and metadata concerning the device.
• the user comprises a group of two or more users.
• the "digital media files” consists of one or more of: individual digital media files, metadata describing digital media files, collections of digital media files or metadata describing collections of digital media files.
• the device is a computer, a mobile device, a dedicated media player, a games console, a storage facility which is connectable via a network or any other device capable of playing or displaying digital media files or any combination of two or more of the foregoing.
• the device comprises two or more devices which are linked, whether permanently, temporarily or intermittently, with one or more of: one another; one or more other devices or a remote server from which the service implementing the present invention operates.

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• 2009
  • 2009-12-09 GB GBGB0921559.1A patent/GB0921559D0/en not_active Ceased
• 2010
  • 2010-12-09 AU AU2010329642A patent/AU2010329642A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2010-12-09 CA CA2783736A patent/CA2783736A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2010-12-09 RU RU2012128500/08A patent/RU2595575C2/ru not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2010-12-09 WO PCT/GB2010/052064 patent/WO2011070366A1/en active Application Filing
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