Home

Radio receiving, recording and playback system

1. These commands would randomly play or tempo rarily shuffle the songs in a given playlist 0174 A limitation may be imposed on how long a segment could be that was not manually trimmed see about trimming below That would prevent overly long segments from being dropped in by mistake for instance four back to back songs that weren t split apart with bookmarks 0175 A method to download data such as a CD RW player flash module other removable media the USB port or a wireless connection to a portable CD or MP3 music player a connection to a PC etc opens up the opportunity to have a jukebox that could include other music beside what had been collected off the airwaves For instance the user could put a CD into the player and hit the save button if she wanted to transfer a given song and store it in the Jukebox Songs from MP3 players could be transferred digitally The result would be a jukebox with songs off the radio CDs or MP3 players 0176 Alternatively selected functions implemented by the receiving system described in this specification could take the form of features in other music systems that might be in a car for instance an MP 3 jukebox with a hard drive In this case the reception and storage of broadcast program ming would not be providing the dominant jukebox and a means would be necessary to place songs captured off the airwaves into that jukebox 0177 A method to upload content to another computer
2. may be considering purchasing 0263 3 The listener could subscribe to a service allowing the removal off the system and or retrans mission of captured songs 0264 4 Depending on the copyright rules of the country in which the system is used it might be a useful business model to have listeners pay a sub scription fee to be able to record songs or only certain songs using the system This permission might be granted only for a certain number of songs or songs that might only be played a certain number of times or that might only persist in memory for a certain period of time 0265 5 Information regarding listening activities habits and patterns could be uploaded for use in monitoring the audience in an anonymous or aggre gate fashion This could generate information that could be sold back to the content providers radio broadcasters or record companies or used by us to improve the service Information specific to the listener that is conveyed to the host could be used for 0266 i Presenting better personalized ads 0267 ii Charging the correct fees for any sub scription services 0268 iii Making guesses regarding what shows or stations a person might be interested in and using that to do automatic recordings that the user does not have to set up 0269 iv To be used in collaborative filtering techniques that will allow one listener to benefit by knowing what content other similar users lis tened
3. such an ad being rerun or specific songs it could take the action of not encoding or saving these portions already saved songs songs that had been skipped over before ads that had been listened to before or other unwanted content 0241 Alternatively unwanted songs as indicated from a Never Again list for instance once identified could be ignored and not run through the splitting process Alterna tively only new songs or songs on a Huntlist could be split out 0242 If much more content was being saved than actu ally being listened to the system could save horsepower by doing the splitting as needed on demand so to speak That is when a listener switched to a channel the content being listened to could be decoded split and identified and perhaps encoded again before the user got to it This approach could be even more refined if the user were surfing from song to song via a method that landed him or her in the middle of the song as opposed to the beginning In this case Song ID and splitting would only be done on demand with demand being indicated if the user listened to a certain minimum length of the song or indicated a preference to go back to the beginning to the song 0243 The system may impose the restriction that one or more standard stations be a talk station in order to conserve processing power 0244 No series of short cuts will ensure that just the right amount of processing power is always av
4. a playback point designated by a given bookmark it may be assumed the bookmark provides a useful demarcation point otherwise the bookmark may be deleted from metadata provided to later listeners 0085 Bayesian probability techniques can be used to refine the use of auto generated bookmarks In particular the time duration between breaks may be an important piece of data indicating the probability of another break coming up Programs may employ a frequency distribution indicating how often separate segments identified by automatic book marking occur As time progresses with no bookmark indi cating a change in topic the more likely a change is to happen soon and the parameters in the search algorithms may be adjusted accordingly 0086 A user may adaptively train the system to look for the right repeating sounds to use as bookmarks Training is US 2003 0163823 A1 performed by creating bookmarks at locations where a recurring bookmark would be desired and erasing those of limited use that the system had automatically created The creation and deletion of bookmarks is more fully discussed below 0087 Note that many or all of these bookmarks could be embedded in a digital or even analog radio signal with the cooperation of the broadcaster Emerging satellite and digi tal terrestrial broadcasting systems which can be used to particular advantage with the program storage and playback capabilities provided the unit may imbed bookma
5. an easy to understand easy to use user interface that does not rely on a user s manual or on visual information so that the driver can access commonly use features without taking his or her eyes of the road To achieve this result it is desirable to extend the functionality of familiar radio CD buttons as much as possible 0199 Audio prompts may be used but could be turned off in the Options menu or could go away after being used a certain number of times 0200 The unit preferably includes at the minimum a small LCD display seen at 115 in FIG 1 This display would show station artist and song name when available recording status and importantly when time shifted broadcasts are being played the relative buffer location being read relative to the live location 0201 Atime bar would express relative listening position both with numerals as well as with a dynamic variable length bar in which the Live playback point appears as the right most point and the listening point positioned to the left The bar could represent either the relative position of the listing point in relation to the whole bar which represents the total recording in the buffer or it could represent absolute time one hour two hours etc For playing back a Sched uled Recording the time bar would not represent distance from Live Instead the full bar would represent the length of the entire show and the moving marker would show where in the progr
6. applause crowd noise at a baseball game silence deep breaths and other sound effects The excitement level or speed of a person s speech may also be determined to provide infor mation used to separate program segments The bookmark might be best placed a few seconds before these sound effects Aug 28 2003 0080 A different approach from word recognition across different speakers that may be employed is the automatic recognition of repetitive patterns on talk and news shows that are used over and over in the same program or on multiple days These sounds may well be part of the show format Repeating patterns can be detected and saved For example a news station may repeatedly announce traffic reports with a phrase such as s Traffic on the Threes Such patterns repeating patterns can be detected used to determine bookmark positions that are useful for navigation and seg ment saving If an audio artifact was typically at the begin ning of an ad block We ll be right back after this a bookmark could be placed two minutes or more after the artifact 0081 Different voices different speakers may be detected using speaker identification analysis to place a bookmark when a new voice appears when a voice reap pears after a certain time period If the host s voice is known a bookmark may be placed each time a voice that was not the host s appears If music is detected in the background on a talk show station the segment
7. associated with the originating station using a LED to indicate the presence of the recording on that normally not recording station Leav ing it there would not require any additional tuners or encoders 0151 Alternatively the recording could be placed in the audio track of any one of the recording stations as if that station had recorded it 0152 While the model of recording a program off a non recording station is understandable for content recorded during non driving time it could be confusing when driving as one of the normally recording stations would not be recording as that tuner encoder would be temporarily devoted to recording the non standard station The user will appreciate the consistency of always having content from the same four standard stations being buffered Cutting out one encoder to go pick up a show from another station would break that paradigm forcing the listener to choose which encoder to use It would be especially confusing if we used the roving tuner encoder approach 0153 Assigning a recording to go into the audio track of the originating station or that of another station This approach would allow someone to put all his sports shows in one audio track and political talk shows in another creating in essence a virtual channel 0154 If the separate Program button is used or if the menu routine had enough options programs could also be stored in distinct bucket one or more for each pr
8. is also envisioned using a CD R wireless link etc This action would be done with a button sequence or voice command while the desired content is playing If the reception system displayed a list of songs developed using its song recogni tion system selected songs could be uploaded or written to a CD R or flash memory card 0178 Content could be written to a car based CD R or CD RW Here it might be advantageous to only permit this writing function if the car is off or stopped to avoid skips on the laser based media The commands could be given at any time and the writing could take place later 0179 If storage space is not available for the complete fingerprint database needed for Song ID then the database could be broken into two parts 0180 1 Fingerprints for the most common songs heard on the radio during a given period of time and US 2003 0163823 A1 songs that the user had expressed an interest in either by saving them or including them on a Huntlist or Never Again list would be stored on the client These fingerprints could take up to 1K of memory each so their storage on the client may be limited 0181 2 The rest of the much larger database could be made available in one of several ways 0182 a The first would employ a CD or other means to supply metadata This database could be used to do Song ID in batch mode A database of 7700 000 songs would be more than sufficient for radio broadcasts and could be
9. may be assumed to be an advertisement To ensure that these and other auto gener ated bookmarks do not appear too frequently only using the first instance of closely spaced similar detected event would be used as a bookmark 0082 Time based bookmarks may be used to identify normal program breaks such as on the hour and half hour 0083 Metadata including predetermined time positions fingerprints and other audio patterns for music individual speakers repetitive events and other detectable bookmark events may be downloaded to the unit in a variety of ways as previously noted In addition as discussed above book mark events may be detected by signal analysis Events designated by both metadata and by signal analysis may be used in combination to determine bookmark locations When a show is first scheduled the system could inquire whether the user wanted the show to contain any time based bookmarks When using speaker recognition techniques speech samples of the known speakers on each show may be provided in order to construct bookmarks when speakers change The system may also deduce which bookmarks and types of marks are of value over time by observing which type of marks any individual user makes use of 0084 The system can further analyze usage logs from an aggregation of users to determine whether people are not making use of a particular bookmark When a significant number of users don t skip right after having landed on
10. preset the listener simply tunes in the new station and presses and holds the appropriate preset as she would with a normal car radio 0046 The Audio Track and Macro Navigation 0047 In one embodiment four presets will be connected to four tuner encoder sets all which would be continuously and simultaneously recording content when the car s igni tion switch 124 is turned on In addition when the ignition switch is off the unit will record programming on a sched uled basis preset by the user If enough power were avail able the recording into the buffer could be continuous so that whenever the user got into the car there would be buffered content available permitting a predetermined dura tion of prior programming to be replayed on any one of the selected channels 0048 Each assigned channel may be recorded continu ously or when the ignition switch is on by operating the RAM store 105 as a circular buffer as described in my U S Pat Re No 36 801 issued to James D Logan et al entitled Time delayed digital video system using concurrent record ing and playback In this way whenever the selected station is broadcasting the most recently broadcast material would be stored continuously overwriting the oldest programming from that station The duration of the most recently broad cast programming available from each selected station might be independently selected so that for example a station selected for its frequ
11. the buffer 0168 To access the jukebox the user would toggle the AM FM Jukebox button 0169 The system could offer any number of playlists stored under the preset buttons by having this button toggle through AM FM Jukebox 1 Jukebox 2 Jukebox 3 etc The user could set any number of playlists through the prefer ence settings As an example with four hours of storage in available memory the Jukebox might store two hours of music about 30 songs so one set of presets would be sufficient Aug 28 2003 0170 Novice users would hit the Jukebox button and not hit a preset button after that and the linear list stored under preset 1 would start playing from newest to oldest The second mentioned novice system would play the linear list associated with the station the listener was last on before hitting the jukebox button 0171 Ifa preset is hit after hitting the Jukebox button the system will start playing from the playlist represented by that preset The unassigned linear list is represented by preset 1 If another preset is hit at any time after entering jukebox mode that playlist will start playing 0172 Whenever a playlist is accessed it will start play ing from the LLTP as if it were a CD that had gotten shut off As mentioned above playlists will always play from newest to oldest 0173 The Jukebox will also be able to employ the random and shuffle buttons if they are present in the system
12. useful when the user is running errands and gets out of her car frequently When the user returns to the car playback may be resumed c The beginning of each scheduled recording 0067 Different audio tones may be issued as cues to indicate the type of boundary that has been jumped to during navigation Alternatively an audio announcement could be made at least initially as a way to train the user what the audio cues mean and then the announcements can be cancelled by the user 0068 Micro Navigation and Client Side Markups 0069 Bookmarks are particularly useful to permit the user to navigate between songs and talk and from song to song The same bookmarks may also serve to delineate segments that are to be saved via the Save button as described below Music and voice bookmarks may be gen erated in the following ways 0070 a Using the programmed DSP 103 to execute Fast Fourier Transforms FFT the stored program content may be analyzed and classified into music or talk placing a marker between the pre sumed switchovers Two discrimination engines may be used to continually evaluate the probability of a piece of content belonging to either class An algorithm dependent on both probabilities may then used to position bookmarks which delimit talk and music In addition the algorithms also can frequently discriminate one song from another Accordingly when two songs are placed back to back the algo rithms constr
13. ailable As such the system may employ an algorithm for deciding the functions that do not get performed if there is not enough horsepower When memory is in surplus some encoding can be postponed and when that is not the case then splitting and Song ID could be postponed Other measures could be to stop buffering one or more channels starting with the roving station and then those standard stations that are listened to least 0245 TV Tuner and other Broadcast Means 0246 A tuner encoder may be adapted to buffer only the audio portions of broadcast TV signals This would provide US 2003 0163823 A1 significantly more audio content for information seeking listeners Metadata supplied by a server could be employed to parse the captured audio stream to bookmark and describe specific information for the listener 0247 The metadata for the TV audio as well as any metadata for radio stations could be embedded in a TV broadcast signal The data could alternatively be merged into the audio stream with an IP over audio technology An alternative broadcast means to distribute metadata could be to use a paging network and build a pager into each Radio 0248 Business Models 0249 The reception system that has been described can form the basis for some unique business models particularly when combined with permission based systems for using various features of the system The following music ori ented features could be controlled
14. al feedback may be used to indicate to the user that the first Save press indicated the start of a recording and the next Save action marked off the end 0163 Songs may be saved and assigned to the Jukebox in one of three ways 0164 The simplest implementation for saving songs is to simply hit the save button and the song or the segment being played would go into a single linear list of songs 0165 A step up in functionality would have each record ing station have its own playlist In this case when the user hit the Save button the song would go into a linear list organized by date saved associated with that station 0166 For more advanced users the mechanism would allow a user hit the save button and then immediately hit a preset button This would assign the song to a specific playlist of the user s choosing In the simplest novice case above where no preset was hit after hitting save the song would go into a default linear list which will be assigned to preset 1 In the second novice approach suggested above the saved song would go into the linear list assigned to that respective station 0167 In all cases the original copy of the saved clips or songs continues to reside in the buffer or recorded program Until the original content is purged there will be two virtual copies of the saved material in the system the second copy being implemented by memory pointers which identify a corresponding segment in
15. am the listener was at that time 0202 As noted earlier digital devices that have limited and restricted interfaces which employ useful interface techniques that could be incorporated into the reception system 0203 a Voice Mail 0204 b Cell phones 0205 c MP3 portable players 0206 d Radar detectors 0207 e Microwaves 0208 f Cameras and camcorder 0209 0210 0211 0212 It should be noted that none of these products has the combination of computing power power supply memory or the robust speaker system is made available by the recording playback unit as illustrated in FIG 1 As a result an improved user interface can be provided to these connected devices g Clock radios h Digital watches 1 GPS navigation and positioning systems 0213 The unit s audio interface may be employed to build in a Help Channel of audio information with book marks to make it navigable stored behind the Options buttons Note that this Help channel could also store infor mation about the car itself that the manufacturer might wish to have available to drivers on request In other words our audio system might be an infrastructure that the car OEM might wish to integrate with its system supplying informa Aug 28 2003 tion that might otherwise have to be displayed on the dashboard In addition to information on request the car OEM could use our audio output system to distribute information when the driver didn
16. andard stations 0052 3 Another variant on this would be to offer a simple and short buffer for the roving station Under this plan the roving station wouldn t store long term content but rather provide only VCR like functions pause instant replay etc within a limited duration buffer 0053 4 The simplest approach is to assume that only the four standard stations can record If the listener roves outside of those there is no recording and no buffering 0054 Scheduled programs may be logically placed in one of two places as presented to the listener 0055 The simplest model would have scheduled record ings inserted on top of the respective station s buffer of recorded content In other words the stored content is arranged in order of the time it was recorded and sorted by station and accessed via a selected preset button The combined content fro a given tuner station is called an audio track As a result of this combination no special access means would be needed to get to scheduled pro grams that would just be there imbedded in that station s audio track If the buffering is going on continuously or after the recording is made the content that comprised the sched uled recording would not be purged as the circular buffer rotated but would remain on the top of the audio track that is programming which has been scheduled for recording is protected against premature erasure from that station s cir cular bu
17. any out of date comments made about traffic or weather etc will be skipped Thus by following the rule of starting at the last major bookmark the starting point for a music station may be the left off point from the previous day 0107 Regarding another question relating to pausing attention should be given to the issue of what to do when someone leaves the car Thus solving that age old conun drum Do I sit in the car and listen to the rest of this song or talk show segment or leave the car and forget about it The simplest approach may be to record additional material from the station being listened to if the listener is 15 fifteen minutes or less away from live listening So if the user were listening live when the car goes off another 15 minutes would be recorded If the user were listening 5 minutes away from live the system would record another 10 minutes of content In all cases the listener would always have avail able 15 minutes of content from the LLTP of the last station listened to 0108 Whether to startup again in Live or the LLTP is a decision that could be left up to user who could make such a selection in the preference menu Alternatively the On Off button which pauses the radio could be designed such that pushing it in and out turned the unit off and paused it and so turning it back on would bring the playback point to the LLTP while turning the button counterclockwise would shut off the radio in which case
18. as United States Logan et al US 20030163823A1 a2 Patent Application Publication co Pub No US 2003 0163823 A1 43 Pub Date Aug 28 2003 54 75 73 21 22 63 25 V RADIO RECEIVING RECORDING AND PLAYBACK SYSTEM Inventors James D Logan Candia NH US Daniel M Morton Somerville MA US Correspondence Address CHARLES G CALL 68 HORSE POND ROAD WEST YARMOUTH MA 02673 2516 US Assignee Gotuit Media Inc Appl No 10 331 198 Filed Dec 30 2002 Related U S Application Data Continuation in part of application No filed on Jan 27 1999 Continuation in part of application No filed on Mar 28 2000 Continuation in part of application No filed on Oct 28 2000 Continuation in part of application No filed on Feb 13 2001 Continuation in part of application No filed on Jan 29 2002 09 238 948 09 536 969 09 699 176 09 782 546 10 060 001 Continuation in part of application No 10 165 587 filed on Jun 8 2002 60 Provisional application No 60 346 418 filed on Dec 29 2001 Publication Classification 61 Int CII ossis HO4N 7 173 HO4N 7 16 6D U S Cle neon toS 725 89 725 134 725 142 725 88 57 ABSTRACT A radio receiver and storage unit which concurrently and continuously receives and records a plurality of separate simultaneously broadcast programs and then selectively reproduces desired programs at desired
19. bookmark button within a second or two of skipping to the bookmark 0190 Note that trimming could be done to material before or after saving it That is the user can use this bookmark process to setup material to be subsequently saved This would be the means to clip ads or talk content or to cleanup songs before saving them that had errant bookmarks 0191 There could be cases where a song or clip was saved to the jukebox but still needed cleanup This cleanup would be easy using the bookmark tool if the listener wanted to shorten the clip By creating a new bookmark at the beginning of the clip the beginning of the song or clip would be moved in to that new point By creating a new bookmark at the end of the clip the song would now end at that spot 0192 Insome cases however the saved song may be too short In anticipation of that problem it is proposed that some extra content be saved outside the bookmarked start and stop points of a song just in case the user wanted to move the bookmarks back 0193 To move bookmarks outside the demarcated song the user has to have the ability to navigate past a bookmark So if a song as bookmarked in the jukebox that started too late the user may move the bookmark back in time While this could be done in several ways perhaps the best would be to go to the beginning of a song by hitting the skip button taking the playback point to the beginning of the next song in the playlist an
20. by speci fying the musical group or speaker for a talk show the user is interested in hearing and the system could assemble those songs or segments for automatic playback This may also form a useful way to rearrange the listener s saved selections jukebox by artist 0118 Another variation in music playback would involve modulating where the marker for the start of each song is placed A user preference can be set to tell the system whether the user would prefer to have the marker after the DJ talkover had stopped or to have the marker placed where the music is first heard in the background even though the DJ is still talking or at an even earlier point providing for more of an intro This was discussed above where it was suggested that the user might want to land within the song so as not have to go through the talkover If the marker were placed after the DJ talk and the user decides he or she wants US 2003 0163823 A1 to hear the whole song even with the DJ talkover they could hit the back skip button and it will go to the location where the mark might have been under the other decision rule at the very beginning of the song 0119 A scan button may be used when navigating time shifted content In operation the scan button when operated moves the playback point to each bookmark in sequence and lets the listener set the amount of content played after the bookmark the length of which might vary depending on whether
21. by various permissions 0250 0251 b Not recording a song or other specific piece of content on a selective basis because of a charac teristic of that segment a Recording a song 0252 c Splitting the song out with bookmarks 0253 d Saving the song for a certain length of time 0254 e Playing the song a certain number of times 0255 f Skipping all or part of an ad or skipping a song 0256 g Transferring the song from the system via removable storage like flash memory or via a wire less connection This uploading could be done at different quality levels depending on permissions 0257 The permissions that could control access to these features include the following whether there is a watermark on the song indicating a particular copyright status whether the song is flagged as having a certain copyright status in the Song ID database or whether the user already owns the song in another medium e g a previously purchased CD whether the user subscribes to a particular on line service that would normally provide access to that song or whether the user subscribes to a broadcast subscription service that would give the listener certain rights to songs broadcast over the air 0258 The use of an MP 3 CD or other removable media a Palm Pilot linked to the unit s USB port or a wireless connection opens up the opportunity to interject not just metadata into the system but advertising as well T
22. chanism would perform the split for example by averaging out the two split points deduced from each song 0075 The bookmarking mechanism eliminates the need to run all the music content through the splitting process since only those areas thought to be close to a split need be analyzed 0076 As there is a lot of music in advertising blocks the music bookmarks will only be set when a solid block of music equal to or greater in length than the minimum song length at least two minutes which is much longer than the music content found in advertising 0077 Other forms of micro navigation the provision of a 30 second or other predetermined duration skip button and the use of analog fast forwarding preferably while playing a listen able time scaled version of the audio and skips to micro bookmarks 0078 Micro bookmarks for talk shows may be produced by using speech recognition to identify specific words such as news sports traffic etc This approach may lead to too many false marks however as these words may be overused in the content and would have to be recognized across a large number of occurrences Selecting only the first instance in a cluster would help minimize this problem 0079 Other words or phrases to look for would be segueing phrases Thanks for calling Welcome to the show When we return etc Other sounds which could be detected to create bookmarks include laughter
23. chematic block diagram showing the details of the parallel tuner encoder mechanism used to simultaneously receive and digitize the program content broadcast by several different selected radio stations DETAILED DESCRIPTION 0009 In the following description an overview of the hardware employed to implement the invention will be presented first followed by a more detailed discussion of specific features and functions 0010 Hardware Overview 0011 A car radio receiving recording and reproduction system which embodies the invention is shown in FIG 1 Although the specific embodiment to be described receives radio signals and records and reproduces the audio program content of those signals it should be understood that in the main the principles of the invention may also be applied to the reception storage and playback of television program ming as well 0012 The system includes a plurality of separate tuners and connected encoders shown collectively at 101 and in detail in FIG 2 Each tuner encoder combination is capable of selecting a received radio signal and converting that signal into digital form The multiplexed digitized content from the tuners and encoders 101 is passed to digital signal processor DSP 103 which compresses the digital content of each signal and stores the compressed signal in a high capacity e g 256 MB random access memory RAM 105 The DSP executes a variety of programs to be described whic
24. d from there pressing the analog rewind button Normally this would not do anything at the begin ning of a song but in this case it would move the playback point before the extra material stored in front of the start of the song 0194 By going backwards the system knows the user is trying to re specify the beginning of the song and will add material to the beginning or end of the song The user can now reposition the bookmark within this new material in the standard way For this approach to work with already saved content it would require that the extra material be available before the beginning and after the end of each saved segment This extra material could be saved for a certain time period and expunged after the song was trimmed or after the material had been listened to a few times with no attempt made to trim the material 0195 Another important use for the bookmark button would be to snip out talk or news segments the user wished to save With appropriate connectivity users could also bookmark content and send these bookmarks or the actual content to other users who had recorded the same content 0196 To delete a song or saved segment the user would simply start to play the saved segment and hold the save button down for a few seconds When pressed and held the Save button becomes an Unsave button US 2003 0163823 A1 0197 User Interface 0198 The functions performed by reception system should be provided by
25. d place ment of a program in a recycle bin of the buffer could be Aug 28 2003 done in one complete action once the program is finished or done in stages as the show is listened to A multi minute delay before placing the recorded content in the buffer may be used to allow the user to jump back while listening to the show 0060 For macro navigation a long press of the bi direc tional skip button would take the listener to the beginning or end of the station s buffer This approach may be made more granular when sufficient memory space is available so that bi directional skips resumes playback at to the last major bookmark These major bookmarks would include 0061 a The beginning of the audio track for each preset the oldest material 0062 b The end of the audio track the Live playback position 0063 0064 d The beginning of a segment of buffered content of it at least say two minutes duration 0065 e The Last Listened To Point LLTP 0066 Using the LLTP bookmark when the user gets into her car gets on the road a minute or two later and then switches channels the unit does not jump back two minutes but instead jump back to the beginning to the show last recorded on that channel This is similar to the way CDs operate where if the listener skips backward before getting too deep into a song the unit resumes playback at the beginning of the previous song track This LLTP bookmark is
26. data in a point to point manner as previously described the users could use a radio EPG on their PC to make future recording selections with the selections being transferred to the unit to control recording The same PC interface could also be used to operate other functions of the radio as noted earlier Alternatively an LCD touch screen display on the US 2003 0163823 A1 in car unit may display menus containing downloaded EPG metadata and the recording selection then made from that easier to use interface 0158 The Save Button and the Jukebox 0159 When the Save button is invoked the content currently playing either a song or other content would be saved in one of several ways 0160 Iflive content is playing and no bookmarks mark ing the content have yet been created the system will save a predetermined amount e g 10 minutes of content sur rounding the point when the Save button was pressed e g the last five minutes and the next five minutes to be played Bookmarks for that content would be created and the saved segment could be trimmed later as described below 0161 If the Save button is hit while playing a recorded segment that has been bookmarked the unit will save the segment defined by the previous and next bookmarks 0162 In a model where there were be no bookmarks delineating songs the user may would hit the Save button at the beginning and end of the section that was to be saved Audible or visu
27. e listener 0032 Power Supply 0033 Due the importance of recording scheduled record ings even when the listener is not present it is important that the unit have access to a car s power supply when the engine is off as illustrated at 121 124 in FIG 1 Alternatively the unit may incorporate its own battery supply recharged from the car battery so that power will be available when it is needed The OFF ON condition of the ignition switch and other operational data from the automobile s control system may also be used to advantage to control the radio reception system of the invention for example by detecting when car is not running or in park the functionality available to the operator may be altered so that for example complicated US 2003 0163823 A1 menus under the Information button are only displayed when it is safe to do so When the ignition has been in an OFF condition for a predetermined length of time e g 36 hours the unit may be powered down to terminate record ing and battery drain so that the battery is not significantly discharged when the car is not in use for prolonged periods 0034 User Interface 0035 The system s user interface 111 is connected to control the stations selected by each of the parallel tuners 101 and the processing performed by the DSP 103 in response to the operation user controls including a set of pushbuttons 113 each of which is visually associated with a descriptive label
28. e in television systems What is claimed is 1 A program reception and playback unit comprising in combination a digital memory for continuously and concurrently recording a plurality of different broadcast program signals a plurality of tuners for simultaneously receiving said plurality of different broadcast program signals each of said tuners having a digital output for continuously supplying a selected one of said broadcast program signals in digital form to said digital memory and a player for accessing a selected one of said broadcast program signals recorded in said digital memory at a selected prior time
29. either a permanently affixed on or near each button or displayed adjacent to each button on the LCD display 105 permitting each button to operate as a soft key whose function in a given operating mode is shown on the LCD display 0036 In one mode each pushbutton may be used by the listener to select programming from a particular station in the same way the pushbuttons are used on a conventional car radio 0037 In another mode the five buttons may be used to selectively perform the following five functions not avail able on a conventional radio 0038 Pause suspends the reproduction of the live or recorded programming currently being played If the pause button is pressed during live programming that programming continues to be recorded for later time shifted playback Note that there is no distinc tion between pausing and turning the radio off since the radio continues to record and so is never off in the normal sense 0039 Save permits the listener to save the complete content of a live program currently being repro duced 0040 Jukebox switches the unit into jukebox mode in which the listener can select and playback previously recorded programming 0041 Mark allows the user to bookmark a spe cific position on a program being recorded or pre viously recorded thereby permitting the listener to easily return to and resume playback at the marked position 0042 Options permits the u
30. ently repeated news and weather broad casts might be allocated only one half hour whereas a station which broadcasts a favorite genre of music might be allocated 24 hours 0049 Settable selection buttons presets may be assigned a frequency the way they are on most conventional car radios by tuning in to a new station and then holding down the button for a couple of seconds These first four presets could be assigned to standard stations Listening to stations outside of the selected four would be roving and could be done under one of four scenarios 0050 1 A first approach would employ four encod ers and five tuners There would not be any recording or buffering of a non top four station The four encoders would stick with the four tuners covering these presets and the fifth tuner could rove to other stations to other stations but not record them This approach is useful when the roving is transitory as the only use for such buffered recording is to replay something if the listener missed it The unit would not build up any content ahead of the point currently listened to so it would not be possible to skim forward US 2003 0163823 A1 0051 2 Another perhaps simpler model would employ the same number of tuners and encoders and reserve one extra encoder tuner set for roving This extra reserved encoder would record and buffer content from of the last roved to station when the user goes back to one of the st
31. er channel With a multituner system a low priority tuner would be used to go pull data of this stream as needed to bring in the metadata A further method places the metadata in an P over audio stream 0111 Note by employing a download capability the metadata to which identifies and describes news and music segments applications called NewsCatcher and Song Catcher respectively can be supplied by the listening public under the community markup methods described in Aug 28 2003 the above noted applications Under this plan people could mark up shows using their own listening software and upload the resulting metadata to a shared server for down load to others 0112 The audience itself could generate community generated bookmarks if there were a back channel a client to shared server link to collect them With such a back channel the shared server metadata may identify Hot Spots a guide to the most popular segments In addition by monitoring listeners use of navigation controls and time scaling and analyzing such usage patterns useful book marks may be automatically generated for the benefit of other users who listen to the same programming at a later time As many people will presumably be using time scaling as a way to skim until they come to something interesting the analysis performed at the shared server can identify those locations where people tend to be slowing down to listen carefully and desig
32. ers Alternatively the system could be trained to understand the operator s voice as some cell phone systems do today If the voice command recog nition system simply recognized letters and numbers voice input could be used to input data by spelling it aloud A more advanced system could dispense with either the presentation of the menu choices or spelling and allow the listener to speak the names and times to be provided as input as is done in the voice recognition systems used by some call center and message handling telephone interfaces A cell phone or other bidirectional connection may be used to connect the client unit to a robust voice recognition and command system operated as a shared telephone a Web service or the host metadata service which would return command signals and or metadata for controlling the client unit 0136 Another non menu based method to input data takes the form of a scrolling alphanumeric keypad Under this system the user could use the scan button to scroll through a list of numbers and letters on the LCD screen and select each character one by one using the buttons 113 as smartkeys in the same way that users input their name or initial into the Highest Score screen of a video arcade game For numbers and specifying a m or p m this scroll ing alphanumeric keypad would be relatively fast and pre cise US 2003 0163823 A1 0137 Another potential interface would piggyback on the cell ph
33. eset buttons In other words the preset buttons could access bins within which to store and retrieve scheduled recordings Again these could serve as virtual channels 0155 A recorded program would be given some protec tion from being overwritten when it is put into a station s audio track This would allow the listener to record her favorite gardening show from Saturday and listen to it during the week without it being overwritten with day to day material When invoking this feature the system would inform the listener to what extent the capacity of the buffers had been reduced for the standard stations One option would be to allow a recording to only be overwritten by the recording of the next episode only as mentioned above 0156 To explore programming content from times of day that aren t normally experienced but during which desirable programming may be recorded and time shifted to the times when car is being used and given that there is no currently available EPG electronic program guide for radio a recording scan function may be implemented This mechanism would record the first 10 minutes at the top of the hour for the whole day for a certain station From this sampling the user may elect to play back certain recordings and the identity of these preferred programs thus be adap tively learned for later more complete recording the fol lowing day or days 0157 With the benefit of being able to download EPG meta
34. ffer 0056 This first audio track model also solves the problem of listening to a station while a scheduled recording is in progress With the merged audio track solution if the listener schedules NPR to record from 7 9 a m and listener tunes in at 8 30 the scheduled recording will merge with and actually be the same as the newly buffered material The scheduled recording will then be at the top of that station s audio track 0057 The second model for storing recorded programs would have separate storage for recorded shows Separately recorded programs may even be accessed under a separate program button which could be used to access and record programs To solve the problem of what happens when the listener gets in the car and a show is being recording off the station being listening to the unit may store portions of the program in both the buffer as well as in the designated program storage location 0058 Erasing scheduled recordings may be done in sev eral ways For regularly scheduled programs the last install ment is overwritten when the new one is recorded If the program was a one time recording it is overwritten with the space going back into the general buffer pool as described later after it has been surfed or listened to in its entirety The content gets put into the oldest part of the buffer i e becomes eligible for erasure to accomplish this overwriting 0059 The removal of the overwrite protection an
35. from multiple listeners thus creating community bookmarks to be used for the same purposes above 0092 Under either scheme mentioned above the system could start to delete content not of interest or not being listened to in order to conserve storage space It would be a form of use it or lose it 0093 In place of a jukebox the system could save bookmarked and edited audio tracks as discrete units Users could access and play specific audio tracks with the new bookmarks added and unwanted material deleted over time on demand Tools may be provided to permit the user to reorder the segments songs in the audio track but not to exchange segments with other tracks to avoid confusion 0094 The CD player recorder seen at 109 in FIG 1 may be used to allow the listener to burn CDs which preserve the edited audio tracks 0095 A Cooperative Business Model 0096 The device may be adapted to support negotiated business rules that would control the usage and construction of the audio tracks the jukebox and resultant CDs These rules might mandate a certain amount of the original adver Aug 28 2003 tising be left in or that certain songs only are allowed to be played a certain number of times or that less popular songs are played along with more popular ones 0097 Various subscriptions fees could be associated with various uses 0098 If acceptable business rules were agreed upon the radio stations may supply the me
36. g QS bee is S0c nO J US 2003 0163823 A1 RADIO RECEIVING RECORDING AND PLAYBACK SYSTEM CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 0001 This is a continuation in part of and claims the benefit of the effective filing date of each of the following pending U S patent applications the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference U S applica tion Ser No 09 238 948 filed on Jan 27 1999 by James D Logan entitled Apparatus and Methods for Broadcast Monitoring and for Providing Individual Programming U S application Ser No 09 536 969 filed on Mar 28 2000 by James D Logan et al entitled Systems and Methods for Modifying Broadcast Programming U S application Ser No 09 699 176 filed on Oct 28 2000 by James D Logan et al entitled Advertising Supported Music Delivery Sys tem U S application Ser No 09 782 546 filed on Feb 13 2001 by James D Logan et al entitled Broadcast Program and Advertising Distribution System U S application Ser No 10 060 001 filed on Jan 29 2002 now published as Pub No 2002 020925 A entitled Audio and Video Program Recording Editing and Playback Systems Using Metadata and U S application Ser No 10 165 587 filed on Jun 8 2002 by James D Logan et al entitled Audio and Video Program Recording Editing and Playback Systems Using Metadata 0002 This application further claims the benefit of the filing date of U S Pro
37. h are stored in a program memory not shown 0013 Program content selected by the user may also be read from or persistently stored in a writable flash memory 107 or on a compact disk using the CD player recorder 109 The parallel tuners 101 and the DSP 103 operate under the control of a user interface control 111 that responds to control inputs from a set of pushbuttons 113 manipulated by the listener and that operates a visual liquid crystal display LCD 115 for displaying information to the listener An external data port 117 which may take the form of a universal system bus USB connection or a network port e g an Ethernet connection may used to exchange both digitized programming content and metadata that describes available programming content with a connected computer or device 0014 The system is preferably powered by the automo bile battery 121 through a direct connection 123 to permit incoming radio signals to be recorded even when the car s ignition switch 124 is off while a second connection 125 through the ignition switch 124 powers selected functions only when the car is in use A small additional battery as used in rechargeable cell phones or laptop computers may be employed in combination with a charger that operates when he engine is running 0015 Tuners and Encoders 0016 The details of the parallel tuner unit 101 are shown in FIG 2 The output signals within a desired passband selected by a bandpass f
38. he CD could be used to transport personalized or generic ads to users in conjunction with their downloading of metadata These ads could substitute or supplement any subscription payments made in conjunction with the receiving of meta data The ads could be inserted into content typically white space that we create that is between copyrighted works in the following ways at the beginning and end of the audio track or at other major bookmarks when the listener switched channels when the user switched modes from radio to CD etc or between songs either in the jukebox or the audio track 0259 An alternative business model one that might protect the interests of the broadcasters would mandate that Aug 28 2003 a certain percent or absolute number of ads be listened to in order to use the unit record songs or play them back repeatedly 0260 The use of an MP 3 CD R or other removable and write able media or a wireless connection also opens up the opportunity convey information back to the host computer typically a PC but perhaps a server if a cellular wireless connection is used This back channel could be used for the following purposes 0261 1 For e commerce as listeners could indicate the singles or CD concert tickets or other items that they were interested in purchasing as a result of hearing them on the system 0262 2 Listeners could request specific down loaded information such as samples off a CD they
39. ilter 201 from an antenna 205 are fed to four separate parallel concurrently operating tuners 211 212 213 and 214 which have like components but which are independently tunable to receive four different stations As US 2003 0163823 A1 discussed in more detail later a different number of tuners and encoders may be employed 0017 The components which form the tuner 211 are shown in detail in FIG 2 An input preamplifier 221 has an output that is fed along with the output from a local oscillator 223 to the inputs of a mixer 225 The lower frequency difference signal from the mixer 215 is passed through a bandpass filter 227 which selects the desired station The unit is tuned by a control signal 230 from the user interface 130 seen in FIG 1 which controls the frequency of the local oscillator 223 such that the difference between the operating frequency of the local oscillator 223 and the broadcast frequency of the desired station matches the bandpass frequency of filter 227 0018 The resulting signal is then passed through a detec tor 241 and a stereo decoder 243 which produces audio baseband audio signals one for each of the stereo channels These two audio signals are then digitized by the analog to digital converters 252 and 253 whose outputs are passed to a digital multiplexer 260 which delivers the 8 digital output signals two stereo channels for each selected station as a single multiplexed stream to the digital signal
40. im through very much buffer space while long commuters will go through larger amounts In addition some people will be skimmers and some won t 0216 Ifa given station s buffer isn t used some of that station s buffer memory will be allocated to another use which could be another station s buffer or the jukebox 0217 The other principal competing use for buffer space in aggregate is the jukebox The system then will allocate memory between the jukebox and the buffers There will be a default buffer size say two hours per station and eight hours in total If the jukebox starts to impinge on that the system will automatically let the jukebox take over unused buffer space When that is gone the system will announce verbally that more jukebox space is needed and ask the user if he or she wants to delete songs or shrink the buffer sizes more 0218 When recordings are scheduled the buffer memory for each recording station s audio track will be automatically expanded to accommodate the size of the recording This will however shorten the length of buffers for all stations The user will be informed how a recording is impacting available storage letting him make a decision at that time how to make any needed tradeoffs 0219 To save memory the system will automatically categorize channels into talk or music stations The confus ing ones like hip hop will automatically be dumped into the music class Different encoding a
41. imited to 0126 a Scheduling recordings and changing the schedule 0127 b Rearranging playlists 0128 c Preventing the overwriting of stored con tent 0129 d Perhaps labeling songs if there is no Song ID available and 0130 e Setting various preferences While differ ent preferences could be set for different occupants of the car chances are the different occupants listen to different content As such the same effect can be achieved by offering preferences for different shows stations etc 0131 While accessing these functions through a menu system could be somewhat tedious the actions done not need to be done often 0132 The menus could be presented in any of the fol lowing ways 0133 The menu options may be read aloud via the audio output to communicate a list of choices The options may be presented either in a timed sequence requiring the listener to respond at the right moment or by invoking the reading of each choice with a button action providing the user with audible feedback on choices made without the need to watch the LCD display 0134 Alternatively the menu may scroll through a list of choices which would be presented on the LCD using the bi directional seek button 0135 The user could select an offered menu item by either hitting a button or using voice input A simple voice system may be used that accepts simple replies such as yes or no from a range of us
42. io track is to be made available on a delayed basis automatic bookmarking voice music recognition other forms of computationally burdensome analysis may be deferred until the metadata is available to reduce the complexity of the analysis Aug 28 2003 0236 Horsepower will also be saved when time scaling of talk stations is invoked as the decoding load is reduced as it s being done that much faster 0237 With a high speed processor and an efficient coding algorithm encoding can be done faster than real time In that case an encoder need be allocated for each station The content could be saved in un encoded batches with the encoded alternating the station being encoding As a pref erence setting the time scaling feature could be automatic for certain types or for all types of talk radio 0238 The user could also have the option of choosing the level of compression desired and the quality of recording for both music and talk in order to modulate both memory and processing power usage 0239 If short buffers were acceptable under certain cir cumstances for instance when roving or enough memory was available encoding could be eliminated for some con tent with this unencoded content being stored for short periods of time until over written If a section were to be saved to the Jukebox it could be encoded at that time 0240 Potentially once the system had identified seg ments as talk or specific segments of talk
43. lgorithms may be used for music and talk stations or perhaps even for the talk within a music station Some stations switch formats at set times during the day and this pattern may be used to reduce the burden on the processor to discern between talk and music on the fly US 2003 0163823 A1 0220 Another way to conserve memory is to erase recorded content after it has been recorded but before it has been listened to if it doesn t fit the user s profile There are several examples of where this could be used some of which assume the implementation of the previously discussed song identification technology 0221 1 The FFT algorithms could distinguish one type of music from another and only keep the type that fit the listener s observed or stated preference 0222 2 The system could use ID technology to identify commercials that have been listened to before and delete them 0223 3 Songs that have been saved in the jukebox already could be deleted after identification 0224 4 Songs on the Never Again list could be deleted or the recording stopped at a mid point as soon as the song was identified 0225 5 Songs that have been played frequently in the recent past could be erased Whereas a DJ attempts to construct an optimal playlist based on the assumption that you ve heard all of it this system feature would attempt to optimize the playlist based on what you had actually heard recently 0226 6 Segments
44. low to serve as an example of how the menu system preferably operates 0142 To schedule a recording the user would 0143 a Select the Schedule Recording option from within the menu presented under the Options button or under the Programs button if that were present 0144 b At the audio or visual prompt specify which standard station will be recorded by hitting that preset button 0145 c Select a beginning time and end time from the menu of choices 0146 d The system would announce audibly or visually how much time was left for other purposes and the listener would have a chance to undo the scheduled recording 0147 e Choose a frequency option from this day only everyday all weekdays individual recurring days of the week or weekends 0148 Scheduling recordings should be a car off activity Given this fact and the fact that scheduling isn t done frequently more complex features may be provided for the power user invoking this feature 0149 Other scheduled recording features that could be made available at the risk of further complication are described next 0150 Creating a scheduled recording from a non stan dard station Under this scenario a station to which the user did not want to devote a tuner encoder set might have individual programs worth capturing The system may Switch a tuner encoder to that station at that time and record Aug 28 2003 that station The recording could be
45. n the client with snippets of unknown songs being sent to the server and the ID information along with the fingerprint for future use being returned to the client This approach may require less bandwidth than the alternative which is to download a potentially larger number of fingerprints to keep the data base full in anticipation of what might be recorded 0186 d If space for a fingerprint database were not a constraint then the radio would be sold with a complete database of all fingerprints for all the songs that have appeared on radio in the last 40 years or so The supplied data base then only need be periodi cally updated as new songs come out Again any number of one way connectivity schemes can get this update metadata to the unit including broad casting it on a FM subcarrier cell phone connection or a CD RW disk etc as noted earlier 0187 The Bookmark Button and Song Editing 0188 If the product is to have a stronger music focus given a device adroit male target audience more aggressive Aug 28 2003 features may be incorporated into the jukebox adding the ability to trim a song To do this the user deletes old bookmarks and creates new ones which more accurately delimit desired content 0189 To create a bookmark simply hit the Bookmark button The bookmark will be inserted at that point in the audio content then playing To delete a bookmark simply skip to that bookmark and press and hold the
46. nate those preferred segments with bookmarking metadata These deduced bookmarks would then be downloaded to later listeners 0113 As users can create their own bookmarks these too could be collected for shared use using the back channel When consistent usage patterns are observed these user generated marks could be passed along to later listeners 0114 Other Ways to Listen that are akin to the con densed shows previews of shows audio trailers and highlights of talk shows described in the above noted previously filed patent applications 0115 Voice recognition may be used to construct the text of spoken word content This text may then be analyzed for meaning with AI tools and a summary extracted This summary may be displayed on the LCD 115 or spoken via a text to the audio output 0116 Audio content may be previewed by playing back highlight segments in a scan mode where portions of each highlight segment based on time or content based book marks are played for a few seconds An audio index could be constructed by using metadata to capture a key sentence from each segment to be used in the audio index The system could read these in a predetermined order and the listener could randomly access each in turn through a voice com mand or button action 0117 There are also novel ways that music may be played back For instance the musical equivalent of a television favorites playback may be constructed
47. ning of the audio track which at that point would be operating as a buffer holding a predetermined duration of the most recently received programming To get to live radio the user would traverse forward just once using the major bookmark button 0104 Rather than starting at the live or LLTP positions an experienced user may want is to start surfing through recently stored material not yesterday s content found at the LLTP which will be too old Going to live on the other hand may often be too slow paced for experienced listeners 0105 Content may be placed in a large buffer that is constantly recording 24 hours a day for some or all the recording stations By using devices which consume little power sustained operation using the car s battery is practi cal particularly when a time limit is included to power down the device after an extensive period during which the battery is not recharged As a result the buffer is always full when the user gets in the car This buffering should be performed in a way that does not over write any scheduled recordings stored in the audio track or content surrounding the LLTP from the day before 0106 For music stations the last major bookmark would probably be the LLTP as users will seldom schedule music programs or care about the time of day when listening to music stations As user s may skip over much of the DJ talk US 2003 0163823 A1 and just go from song to song much of the time
48. of talk shows that are continu ally skipped by a specific listener traffic world news etc could be deleted after recording if they could be identified via a metadata connection or on board content recognition 0227 Conserving Processing Power 0228 The digital signal processor 103 performs multiple tasks which are computationally intensive including 0229 1 Splitting looking for music talk bound aries and other similar breakpoints 0230 2 Content e g song identification 0231 3 Encoding e g MP3 compression 0232 4 Decoding e g MP3 decompression 0233 5 Time scaling 0234 For music stations the major horse power saving action will be to minimize the combined load of splitting and Song ID by minimizing the amount of content that has to be processed by each step In addition it would conserve processing power if talk content used a different encoding algorithm Song splitting can help efficiency by classifying the content into talk or music As a result ID work will only be done on music content and the more efficient spoken word codec will be used on the talk portions 0235 Other heuristic algorithms may be used to cut down on power usage For instance by knowing the genre of the station the usual playlist of the station being analyzed and even the list of recently played songs the Song ID function could look for the most probable matches first When metadata of use in classifying a given aud
49. of the RAM store 105 is a function of how often the listener wants to change channels In the above example of equilibrium with four tuners and a 4 1 skim rate if the listener switched channels every two minutes she would only need eight minutes of memory in total If she wanted to skim through half an hour of content before changing channels she would need 30 minutes per channel or two hours of memory in total 0023 Finally the demand for jukebox storage space might be quite vast to permit the user to tap into large volumes of radio content from which to gather songs Allocating storage between jukebox and radio listening Aug 28 2003 should be organic with a person s changing tastes and perceptions about the value of what has been stored dictating where to draw that line Currently DRAM costs about 10 cents a minute or 40 cents per song Flash upgrades could cost four times as much These costs should drive the prospective size of the jukebox memory Long term small footprint hard drives or some removable media could be employed to increase storage capacity and portability spe cifically when in use with the jukebox 0024 ACD player recorder capable of playing conven tional CD s and further capable of recording programming which the listener has stored in RAM would permit the listener to persistently record favorite programming The player recorder 109 may thus act as an MP3 player recorder allowing the listener to repla
50. one interface If the cell phone keypad was interfaced to the system for example using a Bluetooth link see http www bluetooth com the needed alphanu meric data could be typed into the cell phone using its keypad and display screen with which the user would already be familiar Other portable devices whose in car interfaces the system could piggyback off of include Palm Pilots and notebook and tablet computers which could communicate with the system via a USB port a Bluetooth or other radio link or an infrared connection 0138 If the system had the benefit of exchanging data with a host computer via an MP 3 CD flash module or a wireless network connection menu selection could be done on the host computer and the results transmitted live to the unit or downloaded in advance as a playlist to the car unit Making choices using a PC Web interface would be provide substantial ease of use safety and flexibility advantages Alternatively a robust interface such as a touch screen LCD provided by the unit itself would facilitate the menu presentation and selection being made in the car 0139 Depending on safety concerns certain functional ity should only to be used when the car is not being driven and would be inhibited when the car is in motion or not in par 0140 Scheduling Recordings 0141 Scheduling a recording may be the most important function requiring a menu interface A specific example is outlined be
51. processor 103 seen in FIG 1 The reception system may be used to receive conventional broadcast FM AM IBOC and other digital transmissions and satellite transmissions 0019 The number of tuners encoders included in the system is subject to a variety of considerations In theory each listener has an ideal skim rate That is assuming a certain type of content a given listener might wish to surf through 2 hours of content in a hour session for a skim rate of four to one If the listener s skim rate is 4 1 and the unit includes four tuners the user achieves equilibrium that is she can record content as quickly as she can consume it In general enough tuners should be included to ensure that the average listener does exhaust the amount of accumulated contend while skimming 0020 Note that if the listener is tuning to live radio broadcasts and not replaying programming from the juke box or CD during a given session the demand for tuners and memory is reduced To the extent the listener relies on scheduled programming fewer tuners are needed to gather the requisite material unless the desired programs were all on at the same time on different channels With only two tuners and the same skim rate and half hour listening session the user could pre store an hour of content and still have enough programming available for a typical drive in the car 0021 Data Storage 0022 The data storage memory capacity
52. rk infor mation and other metadata in the signals transmitted to the unit 0088 Audio Tracks 0089 The system may advantageously utilize user gen erated audio tracks which users create by editing recorded audio tracks In this system the system would record long strips of unmodified audio or audio with detected talk removed to form a continuous music recording The listener would then listen to recording using the available analog navigation tools When the user wanted to create a book mark an input signal from the user would be accepted After one or two listening sessions the most desirable segments would by identified and delimited by these user actions The benefit over the automated markup mechanisms described above is that the unwanted songs are never designated in the first place User generated audio tracks require greater effort by the user but are most useful to willing participants who enjoy the creative effort required 0090 Another way to get to roughly the same result would be to let the user surf through and listen to the raw audio track The system would then start to place bookmarks in those places where the user actually listens at normal speed to a segment over 30 seconds long In this way the system semi automatically determines where the good songs and other desirable program segments are recorded 0091 In another model the bookmarks would be deduced by aggregating and averaging multiple bookmarks
53. ser to obtain informa tion about available programming or to perform less frequently used functions 0043 Due to the enhanced navigation capabilities of the system fewer settable program selection buttons presets selections are required In addition there should be a dimin ished need to surf from channel to channel particularly outside the stations that are being recorded When in radio mode then the skip and scan buttons would not switch to different stations but would resume playback at different bookmarks within the recorded content of a given station The unit s skip and scan buttons would retain their con ventional functions when the unit is used as a CD player In radio mode to change stations the pushbuttons would operate as conventional station selection presets and a Aug 28 2003 tuning knob of station scanning pushbutton s may be used to select other available channels 0044 Using the Options button the user can select spe cific channels as standard channels to which one of the tuners encoders is assigned and which thereafter is always recorded When the unit is first used the first two FM and first two AM presets will be the standard stations The user can change the mix of FM and AM standard stations by going into the Options menu A red LED not shown in FIG 1 will light up to indicate when a preset becomes a standard and recording station 0045 To assign a new frequency to a
54. stored on a single CD Each time the CD was entered into the system fingerprints for new songs and other rel evant songs needed for the database stored on the client would be transferred to the unit 0183 b In another architecture a data carousel could be available via broadcast allowing a larger database to be continually streamed to the radio and used for identification 0184 c Another architecture discussed in the above noted patent applications would involve sending snippets of recorded songs via a wireless connection to a server for identification Song ID software which typically scans a complete user supplied recorded song by a vendor supplied fin gerprint looking for a match may be modified to transmit user supplied snippets to the shared server which compares the snippet with a vendor supplied complete songs looking for a match The supplied snippet is preferably could be taken from a standard time into a song s play in order to speed up the matching process The latter method would also require that talk music discrimination soft ware be used to identify what content material is music 0185 This snippet approach could prove to be useful when trying to identify hard to identify songs and when it s difficult to get the entire database to the client In fact if there is a viable point to point wireless connection avail able this may prove to be the best way to build up the database of fingerprints needed o
55. t necessarily request it a push application For instance the system could announce A 15 000 mile service is needed or The right rear door is not closed In addition the memory and communications capabilities provided by the unit may be employed to store GPS navigation maps to store diagnostic information from the vehicle s computer to store and dis play route and trip planning information from a connected PC to store telephone and address information used by a cellular phone or PDA etc to collect and display traffic and weather information from local radio sources to use its wireless connectivity to access Web services of use to travelers etc 0214 Memory Allocation 0215 The system will also automatically adjust some of the uses of memory over time although nothing will ever be deleted from the jukebox automatically While a standard buffer size for all four recording stations will initially be set the length for each station could be automatically adjusted over time The system may automatically adjust the buffer size by adaptively recognizing usage patterns For a station broadcasting news for instance which repeats most of its content every 20 minutes the buffer should be about 25 minutes The unit may learn this duration by monitoring the listener s tendency to stay tuned for only 20 minutes on average each day and then jump somewhere else Other people with very short commutes will seldom if ever sk
56. tadata or alternatively the record companies may embed the data in the recordings themselves 0099 Another business model would have the radio stations in conjunction with the record companies broad casting songs preferably late at night to permit recording and collection at the client side by the recording device This model could be a means for distributing CDs to paying customers 0100 Where to Start Listening 0101 What happens when a user leaves a station and comes back to it Either because they paused the system changed channels or left the car 0102 One option is that listener always starts at the live radio playback point as they would with a normal radio While this similarity has some benefit starting with live programming would make it more tedious to go back to the point at which the user paused 0103 A second option is to start up at the last previous in time major bookmark If there were no recordings that occurred in the interim that would take the listener to the LLTP For short breaks this option does exactly what would be expected if the listener paused the station If the listener is out of the car for a while and a scheduled recording occurs then the unit will start up at the beginning of that scheduled recording If the unit has not been playing a given station for a predetermined time say 20 minutes and there is no scheduled recording in the audio track playback will begin at the begin
57. the content was talk or music and what type of bookmark was encountered If the time between bookmarks was too long for instance with a talk show for which no markup metadata was available then a skipping pattern using preset time jumps or jumps to automatically detected audio events could be employed to allow the user to scan through the content of a recorded audio track 0120 Another variation on the scan function could take the listener to a point in time in the segment that is after the bookmark This would give listeners a quicker sense of what the segment was about than starting at the beginning of the segment This in essence is the way a conventional radio scan button operates by taking the listener relatively deep into the content by virtue of the fact that it is non intelli gently jumping into a broadcast stream in process in the channel station jumped to 0121 Songs are known to have a sweet spot in them a spot that resonates with and is quite familiar to listeners It is the segment that often is represented on sampling websites where listeners can hear a 30 second snippet of each song Quite often this segment will be the refrain and include the name of the song as part of the lyrics Sweet spots may be used in another form of scan listening in which the playback jumps to the sweet spot in each song If the user likes the song he or she can hit the back skip button to go to the beginning This concept co
58. the listener would wake up in live radio In this way the user could make the decision on the fly 0109 Ways to Listen Downloaded Markups 0110 Metadata may be employed to control playback in the same way that it was used to control television program playback as described in the previously identified patent applications including U S application Ser Nos 10 060 001 and 10 165 587 Using these mechanisms timely metadata may used to identify and categorize segments of recorded talk or news which could optionally be run through a preference filter The user may playback identified seg ments continuously or use the metadata to surf The result would be a personalized news show The metadata may be supplied in one of several ways It may be pushed to the client playback unit either through a point to point wireless link embedded in a broadcast stream or transferred to the system in batch mode such as via a CD or file transfer from of a Palm Pilot In either case the download vehicle would not know exactly what had been recorded and what metadata was needed Available metadata or a subset that a specific user might need would be supplied and the client software would select the needed metadata and match it up with the content For a push wireless system a broadcast carousel system in which the metadata streams by and the client software select the needed elements may be used The metadata may be embedded into the FM sideband of anoth
59. times User interface buttons selectively perform the following five functions not available on a conventional radio Pause suspends the reproduction of the live or recorded programming currently being played Save permits the listener to save the complete content of a live program currently being reproduced Juke box permits the listener can select and playback previously recorded programming Mark allows the user to book mark a specific position on a program and Options permits the user to obtain information about available pro gramming or to perform less frequently used functions 211 Se Pa 224 Bandpass Filter 227 223 225 Local Oscillator Stereo Detect 241 243 260 212 k Bandpass Filter 301 p 213 214 2nd Tuner l fr Third Tuner Fourth Tuner Patent Application Publication Aug 28 2003 Sheet 1 of 2 US 2003 0163823 A1 Auto Battery 125 Audio Out En 121 105 256 MB SDRAM 101 Bess Audio Out Ex 103 V Parallel Digital Tuners Signal Process i cessor TM LCD Display Interface OOOOO CD P Recorder 109 s Flash 107 Memory USB Port Fig 1 US 2003 0163823 A1 Patent Application Publication Aug 28 2003 Sheet 2 of 2 092 c bls Jeun pJlu LOE Do omm E vic Jaun uynoJj ELZ J l 4 ssedpueg CLS oez Lpz O JO e oso 201 H ssedpueg Jepooeg 091 S q 0 y ov
60. to This could include the use of Hot Spots as described in the above noted patent applica tions 0270 v Explicit quality assessments by listeners could be uploaded user rated songs and commen taries 0271 vi Polls by the central server asking whether listeners agreed with a certain perspective on a talk show 0272 An alternative to uploading this information to the server would involve storing the information on the client US 2003 0163823 A1 where it would be used for the same purpose For instance with some limited means to download data a multiplicity of ads could be delivered to the client for instance via CD The client could then choose those that best fit the user s profile based on listening data collected but stored on the client This approach would work well with automatic recording as well Other functions mentioned above do require uploaded information such as proper billing 0273 Note that all of these applications could apply to both music or talk content 0274 Conclusion 0275 The methods and apparatus which have been described are merely illustrative applications of the prin ciples of the invention Numerous modifications may be made to the systems and components which have been described without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention For example many of the techniques used for Aug 28 2003 selecting recording and reproducing radio signals can be used to advantag
61. uct an estimate of where the transition is and creates a dividing bookmark US 2003 0163823 A1 0071 b Song fingerprints song ID technology can be used to identify songs The beginning and end of a song may be determined from data provided with the fingerprint data which specify the time durations which separate the start and finish of a song or other identifiable program segment from the time position of the detected fingerprint A delayed further offset could be used to account for the usual DJ talkover at the beginning of a song so that the bookmark might be set into the song some what so that if talk is detected after the expected start of the song the delayed offset position may be used 0072 The ideal marking technique would combine both of these methods and thus offer several advantages 0073 While the classification method can mark off the DJ talkover nicely it does produce errors i e false markers and missing markers False marker errors associated with the classification method could be detected with the Song ID technology and the false markers deleted 0074 The Song ID approach could also highlight the presence of a missing mark Such detection could prompt the algorithm to re analyze the content in the approximate location of the missing marker The re analysis would be done with new parameters that reflected that fact that there was a marker in the vicinity If no split were detected the bookmarking me
62. uld be used both for buffered music content and with songs saved into the user s jukebox The sweet spots may be identified by downloaded timing metadata or isolated using the DSP to perform song identification 0122 When a song is played back and the Song ID system is employed the song name and artist will be displayed on the LCD 115 To supplement that the system could use a text to speech system to say the song and artist names so the user wouldn t have to take his or her eyes off the road Alternatively audio clips of someone pronouncing the song and artist names could be downloaded for better audio clarity 0123 Given the up to 10 1 ration of storage needed for spoken word compared to music content storing these names would be an insignificant amount of overhead if it was only being stored for recorded songs Storing the identifying sound clips for the whole database would require extensive and expensive storage capacity To conserve space the metadata server may download the audio name clips and other descriptive metadata only after recorded songs were identified at the player and their identity sent via the back channel to the metadata server 0124 Menu Functions 0125 Enhanced features could be accessed through Menu functions that would be accessed through the Aug 28 2003 Options button one of the multi function user actuated buttons indicated at 113 in FIG 1 These functions may include but are not l
63. visional Patent Application Serial No 60 346 418 filed on Dec 29 2001 by James D Logan et al entitled Radio Receiving Recording and Playback Sys tem FIELD OF THE INVENTION 0003 This invention relates to methods and apparatus for receiving recording and reproducing radio and television signals and more particularly although in its broader aspects not exclusively to a radio receiver which incorporates means for concurrently recording several live broadcasts which may be selectively replayed at a later time BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THB INVENTION 0004 It is a leading object of the present invention to permit a radio listener or a television viewer to enjoy the programming they want to watch or listen to when it is most convenient 0005 The present invention operates by the concurrently and continuously receiving and recording a plurality of separate simultaneously broadcast programs and then selectively reproducing desired programs and desired times 0006 These and other objects features and advantages of the present invention may be made more apparent by considering the following detailed description of a specific embodiment of the invention In the course of this descrip tion frequent reference will be made to the attached draw ings BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0007 FIG 1 is a schematic block diagram of a radio receiving system embodying the invention and Aug 28 2003 0008 FIG 2 is a s
64. y music and programming using CDs created by a personal computer and would provide a convenient mechanism for offload content that has been saved in RAM 0025 In addition the unit may be provided with a flash memory port 107 for accepting removable flash memory cards or memory sticks which currently would permit 256 MB of non volatile memory to be added for approximately 100 0026 External Data Connection 0027 Ideally the unit would have some form of connec tivity to permit data exchange with remote devices This data exchange capability can take place using removable media CD s memory cards or memory sticks with the CD recorder player 130 or the flash memory port 107 or by means of a data port such as the USB port seen at 117 which may be inexpensively incorporated into the unit The data port may also take the form of a wired or wireless network connection or by receiving data in the form of broadcast radio signals Regardless of the mechanism employed the external data connection may be used to 0028 a Upgrade the software over time a potential revenue stream 0029 b Receive data needed to provide an elec tronic program guide 0030 c Receive signature or signal fingerprint data used for functions which are implemented using program recognition and or 0031 d Receive metadata for identifying and describing programs and program segments to facili tate recording and playback of content desired by th

Radio receiving, recording and playback system

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents