Convergence-enabled DVD and web system
Contents
1. features are associated with a script for controlling the media player 22 The system of claim 17 wherein the one or more features are associated with an event script for deriving fur ther URLS by indexing into the TXTDT MG data structure2. 12 United States Patent Mohan et al US008001211B2 US 8 001 211 B2 Aug 16 2011 10 Patent No 45 Date of Patent 54 75 73 21 22 65 63 60 51 52 58 56 CONVERGENCE ENABLED DVD AND WEB SYSTEM Inventors Fergal John Mohan Sunnyvale CA US Rainer Brodersen Santa Clara CA US Assignee Apple Inc Cupertino CA US Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 732 days This patent is subject to a terminal dis claimer Appl No 11 940 295 Filed Nov 14 2007 Prior Publication Data US 2008 0177863 A1 Jul 24 2008 Related U S Application Data Continuation of application No 09 546 575 filed on Apr 10 2000 now Pat No 7 313 809 Provisional application No 60 129 724 filed on Apr 16 1999 Int Cl G06F 15 16 2006 01 HOAN 7 173 2006 01 US Cl 709 217 709 219 725 109 725 110 Field of Classification Search 725 109 110 386 46 95 125 126 709 217 219 See application file for complete search history References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 701 383 A 12 1997 5 727 141 A Russo et al 3 1998 Hoddie et al 5 774 664 A 6 1998 Hidary et al 5 774 666 A 6 1998 Portuesi 5 818 935 A 10 1998 Maa 5 909 551 A 6 1999 Tahara et al 5 991 798 A 11 1999 Ozaki et al 6 047 292 A 4 2000 Kelly et al 6 081 264 A 6 2000 R
3. information extracting the DVD Text Data Structure from the infor mation extracting video content from the information and displaying the video content the video content including a button associated with the URL the media player being responsive to a script initiated in the browser wherein the browser is further for displaying content des ignated by the URL responsive to an actuation of the button 13 The system of claim 11 wherein the information from the DVD includes positional information associated with the URL 14 The system of claim 12 wherein the positional infor mation indicates a position of the button within the DVD content 15 The system ofclaim 12 wherein the content designated by the URL includes a script for controlling the media player 16 The system of claim 12 wherein the DVD unit con trolled by accessing features in the displayed content desig nated by the URL 17 A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to popu US 8 001 211 B2 7 late a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Registers GPRM associated with the DVD with positional playback data the system comprising a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the infor mation and upon receiving a certain embedded com mand writing indicia ofa current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM a DVD Text Da
4. positional playback data in the GPRMs and the browser is for displaying the content specified by the URL responsive to user actuation of the menu button 7 The system of claim 6 wherein the media player is for generating a button number message responsive to the user actuation of the menu button the system further comprising an event script for receiving the message and responsive thereto calling the DVD Text Data parser 8 The system of claim 6 wherein the DVD Text Data parser is further for receiving a DVD Text Data Structure from the DVD each time the DVD is initialized the DVD Text Data Structure including the URLs and the DVD Text Data parser is for using the button number message to index into the DVD Text Data Structure to obtain the URLs 10 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 9 A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to popu late a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Register GPRM with positional playback data the system comprising a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the infor mation and upon receiving a certain embedded com mand writing indicia ofa current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM a DVD Text Data parser for receiving the information and parsing a TXTDT MG data structure in the informa tion to derive data containi
5. 99 6 262 724 B1 7 2001 Crow et al wo 98 47080 10 1998 6 434 326 B1 8 2002 Kondo etal 6 467 026 B2 10 2002 Yamamoto et al 6 564 255 Bl 5 2003 Mobini et al OTHER PUBLICATIONS 6 580 870 B1 6 2003 Kanazawa et al FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS EP 0814419 A2 EP 0 886 276 A2 EP 0 886 276 B1 12 1997 12 1998 5 2004 RCA User s Manual RC5200P 1996 Thomson Consumer Electron Ics Mascha et al Interactive education Transitioning CD ROMs to the Web Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 27 2 267 272 Nov 1994 U S Patent Aug 16 2011 Sheet 1 of 2 US 8 001 211 B2 x FIGURE 2 U S Patent Aug 16 2011 Sheet 2 of 2 US 8 001 211 B2 Play DVD Emulate DVD 100 seem c qn Click DVD Display Button Lasse 110 Generate 120 EC DVD Button Change Message Call DVDTextInfoParser 30 Responsive to Message fan oe si SECUS T 14 Extract URL from DVD 1 7 j I Register Information I I 142 I I l I 150 Display URL Using Browser US 8 001 211 B2 1 CONVERGENCE ENABLED DVD AND WEB SYSTEM CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of allowed U S patent Ser No 09 546 575 titled Convergence Enabled DVD and Web System filed Apr 10 2000 now U S Pat No 7 313 809 which was based on and claimed priority from now expired U S Provisional Application Ser No 60 129 724 filed on Apr 16 1999 both applications he
6. RLs asso ciated with the DVD menu buttons have been references to web pages or streaming video however the URLs may point to other types of resources and rely on the system to call appropriate helper applications for example a URL might point to a file in Adobe Acrobat PDF format so that when the browser accesses it the Adobe Acrobat reader will automati cally be called to display it Even further the URLs need not point to data files but can also refer to programs which will be played when the corresponding buttons are actuated or the like Further numerous practical applications of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art For example information on events and webcasts could be distributed in the form ofan electronic magazine Consumers would receive the electronic magazine in the mail on DVD The DVD can combine rich video content of the various artists and events high quality samples of content webcasts etc to be pur chased interviews concert information and the ability to purchase associated merchandise all on one disc Since the disc uses high quality graphical elements that are assembled from an HTML template stored on a separate server the viewer s experience can change as often as the DVD distribu tor wishes In fact different content may be served to different consumers based on parameters in the URLs The fact that one disc can bea totally different experience for everyone that views it makes th
7. bodiment however other techniques can be used with platforms on which DirectShow is not available for example the TXTDT_MG structure can be directly read in from the DVD 70 Preferably event script 50 is a Java script however alter native implementations such as a Microsoft Visual Basic Script may be used instead Also DVDTextInfoParser 60 is preferably an ActiveX control using an ATL COM interface however other program implementations may be used as well Further although DVDTextInfoParser 60 may access the DVD system 20 each time a URL is needed in the pre ferred embodiment it preferably reads the TXTDT_MG structure into memory each time a DVD 70 is initialized and references the information in memory This is because the Windows Media Player used as the media player 80 in the preferred embodiment does not work well with other objects simultaneously accessing interfaces to the same DVD 70 If this problem is resolved in future versions of DirectShow the access as needed scheme might work equally well 20 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 Thus a one size fits all template web page could be made in whicha field 40 displays DVD playback while a window 30 displays web content When the user selects a button the media player 80 generates an EC Button Change event which is acted upon by the event script 50 to call DVDTex tInfoParser 60 based on the button number and menu title index number to obtain the correspon
8. computer may also be used for this purpose Further DVD 70 played by the DVD system 20 is preferably specially authored as described in greater detail below In use the browser 10 displays a web page 30 defined by e g HTML code and stored at a site specified by the user to the browser 10 The browser 10 may also display a separate or integrated playback field 40 1 e a window frame or other field for video content from DVD system 20 or streamed content from the WWW with synchronized audio from the DVD 20 or streamed content played on the computer s speak ers as is known in the art see FIG 2 Preferably the playback field 40 is generated by a media player 80 such as the Microsoft Windows Media Player with a call thereto embed ded in HTML code for the displayed web page as is known in the art Other multimedia players may also be adapted for this purpose as well Asis known in the art DVD systems may be configured to display buttons and the like to enable a user to navigate the DVD 70 and access various portions thereof In a dedicated DVD player these buttons are accessed by a cursor controlled by cursor direction keys on the DVD player s console remote control or the like however when a DVD is played in the computer using the media player 80 the buttons may be accessed by positioning or clicking the computer s mouse cursor on the buttons displayed by the media player 80 as is common with graphical user interfaces as shown
9. contents of therein and upon receiving a certain command embedded in the informa tion writing indicia of a current position of play within the DVD into the one or more GPRMs a media unit adapted to receive the information and extract a TXTDT MG data structure associated with the DVD and further adapted to display video content extracted from the information and a browser for displaying content designated by Universal Resource Locators URLs the URLs being derived by using the GPRMs to index into the TXTDT MG data structure wherein the displayed content designated by the URLs includes one or more features for controlling at least one of the media unit and the DVD unit 2 The system of claim 1 wherein other URLs are derived using an event script to index into the DVD Text Data Struc ture 3 The system of claim 2 wherein the event script is called from the displayed content 4 The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more features includes a control for indexing into the DVD Text Data Struc ture to obtain additional content 5 The system of claim 1 wherein URLs are derived using a DVD Text Data parser and the indicia to index into the DVD Text Data Structure to obtain the URL 6 The system of claim 5 wherein the media player is for displaying a menu button specified by the information from the DVD the menu button being associated with the URL the association between the menu button and the URL being responsive to the
10. ding URL from the DVD s TXTDT MG structure The content corresponding to the retrieved URL 1s then displayed in the web page 30 Similarly when an EC Domain Change or EC Chapter Change event occurs DVDTextInfoParser 60 could be called to check for corresponding URLs and synchronize the web content in web page 30 to the current chapter displayed in playback field 40 If the corresponding URL content contains a reference to streaming content the streaming video can be displayedin combination with or in place ofthe DVD content In a similar manner HTML code in the web page 30 may make calls to the event script 50 or a similar script to retrieve the URLs stored in TXTDT MG will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art These may then be displayed in the web page 30 as hyperlinks controls or the like to enable the browser to display web content 30 corresponding to URLS in the DVD 70 Thus rather than or in conjunction with control ling the system by accessing features of the DVD display 40 as described above the system may be controlled by access ing features of the web page 30 The above description of the preferred embodiment has been presented for explanation purposes only and the present invention is not so limited Modifications embellishments and alternative implementations of the invention will be readily apparent those skilled in the art and are encompassed by the invention For example in the preferred embodiment the U
11. e system a highly flexible and effective advertising medium In another potential application a DVD containing a busi ness or sales training program produced to take advantage of many DVD features such as Multiple Language Tracks and Multiple Camera Angles could be distributed worldwide Viewers could interact directly with the content and be quali US 8 001 211 B2 5 fied based on their performance The DVDs would be usable at any time as an offline reference In yet another potential application a professor works with his AV team to author several DVDs to be distributed to the students to take with them The student may then view lec tures and seminars from top professors from around the world in their own home Classwork and tests could be administered remotely via each professor s website Scheduled class hours with chat boards would give the student the ability to refer to every discussion that ever took place at any given time and the DVDs could be saved as future references Such variations and implementations are to be considered within the scope of the present invention What is claimed is 1 A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to popu late one or more General DVD Parameter Registers GPRMs the system comprising a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating informa tion representative of the
12. east one drawing executed in color Copies of this patent or patent application publication with color drawing s will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee These and other objects features and advantages of the present invention are better understood by reading the follow ing detailed description ofthe preferred embodiment taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which FIG 1 is a block diagram of an integrated DVD and web browser system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention FIG 2 is an example screen showing DVD and WWW playback according to the preferred embodiment and FIG 3 is a flowchart showing the steps in displaying DVD content in conjunction with WWW or streamed media con tent in the preferred embodiment DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION FIG 1 shows an integrated DVD WWW system prefer ably known as a Convergence Enabled System according to a preferred embodiment ofthe present invention As is well known in the art web browser 10 is preferably implemented on a personal computer or the like The browser can prefer ably simultaneously display web content and DVD content or can be readily adapted to do so as will be apparent to those skilled in the art Also the DVD system 20 is preferably a DVD drive and associated support circuitry installed within the computer however a dedicated DVD player communi cable with and controllable by the
13. estro system of Spruce Technologies of San Jose Calif In Step 100 the media player 80 will then emulate this register information the GPRMs when playing DVDs for example the method in which the windows media player does this is explained in Microsoft s documentation for the pro gram The menu index thus obtained from the GPRMs in Step 142 can be used in Step 144 as an index into corresponding fields in the DVD s TXTDT MG structure also read in by the media player 80 which contains URLs stored there by the DVD authoring system As detailed in the DVD specification the TXTDT MG structure within the DVD data includes various predefined fields holding specified information such as producer name vocalist name languages and the like and a provider unique field designated for such use may be used to store the URL Thus by monitoring the designated GPRM an outside program such as the event script 50 can reliably derive the appropriate URL from the current menu index and the current button For systems using Microsoft DirectShow the DVDTextIn foParser object based on an ATL COM interface named DVDTextInfoParser can preferably facilitate playback of DVD 70 using the DirectShow DVDGraphBuilder interface however other techniques also will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art As described above DVDTextInfo Parser then accesses the DirectShow IDVDInfo interface to read in text data This technique is used in the preferred em
14. in Step 110 of FIG 3 When this occurs the media player 80 generates a Windows event message such as EC DVD Button Change signifying that a particular button has been selected or actu ated and providing its number Step 120 In the preferred embodiment this message is intercepted by an event script 50 US 8 001 211 B2 3 which calls DVDTextInfoParser 60 Step 130 a custom object that uses the current DVD button provided by the media player 80 via EC DVD Button Change and infor mation extracted from a particular field within the DVD 70 corresponding to that button as described in greater detail below in order to obtain a URL Step 140 that can be accessed by the web browser 10 and displayed on the web page 30 Step 150 More specifically as is known in the art the media player 80 preferably generates information on the current status of the DVD 70 as part of its playback process The DVD 70 is preferably authored to cause the DVD system 20 to write the index ofthe currently displayed menu into a specific General DVD parameter GPRM by e g inserting DVD commands at strategic places into the DVD data set during its compila tion An example ofa DVD authoring system which automati cally performs this task is described in U S Pat No 6 453 459 to Brodersen et al issued from application Ser No 09 010 267 incorporated herein by reference A commer cially available system which automatically performs this task is the DVD Ma
15. ng a Universal Resource Locator URL therefrom a browser for displaying a hyperlink corresponding to the URL and responsive to actuation thereof content des ignated by the URL and a media player adapted for receiving the information extracting video content from the information and dis playing the video content wherein atleast one of the media unit and the DVD unit is controlled by a script called from the content designated by the URL 10 The system of claim 9 wherein the content designated by the URL is HTML coded 11 The system of claim 9 wherein the content specified by the URL is streaming media content 12 A system for generating information representative of the contents of a DVD the DVD having been authored such that the information includes embedded commands to popu late a plurality of elements of a General DVD Parameter Registers GPRM with positional playback data the system comprising a DVD unit for playing the DVD and generating the infor mation and upon receiving a certain embedded com mand writing indicia of a current position of play within the DVD into the GPRM a DVD Text Data parser for parsing a DVD Text Data Structure based on content of the GPRM to derive a Universal Resource Locators URL therefrom a browser for displaying a hyperlink corresponding to the URL and responsive to actuation thereof for displaying content designated by the URL and a media player adapted for receiving the
16. osen et al 6 173 406 B1 1 2001 Wang et al Continued FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS EP 0 762 422 A2 3 1997 Continued OTHER PUBLICATIONS Guidebook for DVD Video Text Data Usage Sep 1999 Ver 1 0 Continued Primary Examiner Philip J Chea 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Fletcher Yoder PC 57 ABSTRACT A system integrates standards defined multimedia storage system and an Internet browser In one example Universal Resource Locator URL information corresponding to web sites accessible by the browser is stored in fields within the DVD data When a user actuates a DVD element that has a corresponding URL the web browser displays information from that site When the user actuates an HTML menu or other browser implemented feature the DVD system accesses a portion ofthe DVD data specified in the menu This arrangement provides for two way communication i e HTML in the browser is able to control DVD content and vice versa Having WWW information embedded in the DVD brings a number of benefits the foremost of which is the ability to write a one size fits all template web page that can interrogate the DVD for URL information and present WWW content corresponding to the URL synchronized with the DVD information 22 Claims 2 Drawing Sheets 1 of 2 Drawing Sheet s Filed in Color US 8 001 211 B2 Page 2 U S PATENT DOCUMENTS JP 10063562 3 1998 6 230 295 Bl 5 2001 Watkins JE 11161603 6 1999 JP 11161664 6 19
17. reby incorporated by reference BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1 Field of the Invention The present invention is directed to interactive multimedia systems More particularly the invention is directed to DVD systems which are able to selectively control the processing of content from the World Wide Web and the like and to web based systems which are able to selectively access DVD systems and the like 2 Description of Related Art Digital Versatile Discs or variously Digital Video Discs or DVDs and the World Wide Web WWW are extremely powerful interactive multimedia tools However they both have their drawbacks Although DVDs are capable of storing large amounts of high quality video and audio data once they are manufactured their content is essentially static it cannot be changed updated or personalized Also the limited inter activity does not meet the demands of many of today s com puter literate users Further although the WWW is dynamic and rapidly changing it is not capable of providing high quality multimedia content in real time for many users due to limited bandwidth BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made with the above prob lems of the prior art in mind and a first object of the present invention is to provide a system for integrating static and interactive multimedia delivery systems such as DVD sys tems and the WWW It is another object of the present invention to provide a mul
18. ta parser for deriving a data structure from the information and based on the content of the GPRM parsing the information to derive a plurality of URLs therefrom a browser for displaying content designated by any one of the plurality of URLs wherein the browser displays content upon actuation of the any one URL and a media player adapted for receiving the information extracting video content from the information and dis playing the video content the media player being further adapted to display a plurality of buttons wherein each button is associated with at least one of the plurality of URLs the association between the each button and the at least one URL being responsive to the positional play back data in the GPRM wherein 8 the displayed content designated by at least one of the plurality of URLs includes one or more features for controlling the media player 18 The system of claim 17 wherein the information includes a DVD Text Data Structure and the DVD Text Data parser uses the positional playback data to index into the DVD Text Data Structure to obtain a selected URL from the plurality of URLs 19 The system of claim 17 wherein the browser displays the designated content designated at the same time as the media player displays video content 20 The system of claim 17 wherein the browser is further for displaying a hyperlink corresponding to the any one URL 21 The system of claim 17 wherein the one or more
19. timedia delivery system which is interactive and easily modifiable It is a further object of the present invention to provide a highly interactive and dynamic multimedia system which is capable of providing high quality multimedia content The above objects are achieved according to an aspect of the present invention by providing a system which integrates a DVD system and WWW content or similarly presented information such as HTML formatted material Universal Resource Locator URL information corresponding to sites or media streams accessible via the WWW or another content delivery system are stored in fields within the DVD data Whena user actuates a DVD element that has a corresponding URL the information from that site is displayed in a web browser to enhance the DVD viewing experience Con versely the DVD system can be controlled when the user actuates HTML information from a web page or the like This arrangement provides for two way control i e HTML is able to control DVD content and vice versa Having the WWW information embedded in the DVD brings a number of ben efits perhaps the foremost of which is the ability to write a one size fits all template web page that can interrogate the 40 45 50 60 65 2 DVD for URL information and present WWW content cor responding to the URL information and synchronized with the DVD content BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The patent or application file contains at l
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