Abstract:
Providing a program guide for digital and analog broadcast television channels specific to a geographic region. A computing device sends a program guide request including a geographic identifier to another computing device. In response, the other computing device filters a master program guide as a function of the geographic identifier to create the requested program guide. The created program guide includes a call sign, physical channel, major channel, and content listing for each of the digital broadcast television channels. In one embodiment, the digital broadcast television channels conform the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standard.
Abstract:
A system for locating, segmenting, annotating and retrieving multimedia files, provides a database of metadata (68) relating to multimedia files (70), a database manager (64), and a database client (66) for accessing the data contained within the database. The database client (66), together with the metadata database (68) and database manager (64) provide a variety of different functionalities, namely a deep linking functionality, a segmentation functionality, a metadata annotation functionality, a retrieval functionality, and an access functionality. The user, through database client (68) annotates the multimedia file or segment of multimedia file with metadata which is saved in the database (68). When the user desires to locate a multimedia file, the metadata is searched or browsed to locate the database entry associated with the multimedia file in question. The system further provides the ability for the user to load, open and start the playing of a multimedia file from a point intermediate to its start and end point, and without the user having to experience the portion between the start point and the intermediate point, break down larger files into shorter segments or individual frames (or still images) or regions within frames (or still images) without creating additional copies of the selected segments of the multimedia files of interest, thereby avoiding copyright issues from arising.
Abstract:
Providing content listings for digital television broadcasts. A computing device matches digital broadcast television channel data (e.g., call signs or broadcast frequencies) with analog broadcast television channel data to create a list of mapped channels. The computing device creates a program guide for the digital broadcast television channels as a function of the matched channel data by associating program listings for the analog channels with the digital channels. The created program guide covering both digital and analog television channels is stored in a database for subsequent processing responsive, for example, to a user request. In one embodiment, the digital broadcast television channels conform the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standard.
Abstract:
An extensible mechanism for storage and interchange of objects is described herein. According to first aspect of the disclosure, objects having respective class definitions are received. The objects are represented in an interchange format by mapping the class definitions of the objects to corresponding fields defined within the interchange format. According to a second aspect of the disclosure, the objects are loaded into a persistent store by mapping the class definitions of the objects to corresponding fields of the store. According to at least a third aspect of the disclosure, a data structure for a unique identifier element is described, along with processes using the unique identifier element to determine whether to update an existing object in the store, or to create a new object in the store.