Disclosed are methods and systems for controlling the playback and recording of television programming containing interactive applications. In particular, the disclosed methods and systems detail how “trick modes” can be handled when playing applications that are distributed with the television programming.

A machine includes a processor and a memory connected to the processor. The memory stores instructions executed by the processor to receive a message and a message parameter indicative of a characteristic of the message, where the message includes a photograph or a video. A determination is made that the message parameter corresponds to a selected gallery, where the selected gallery includes a sequence of photographs or videos. The message is posted to the selected gallery in response to the determination. The selected gallery is supplied in response to a request.

In exemplary embodiments of the present invention systems and methods are provided to implement and facilitate cross-fading, interstitials and other effects/processing of two or more media elements in a personalized media delivery service so that each client or user has a consistent high quality experience. The effects or crossfade processing can occur on the broadcast, publisher or server-side, but can still be personalized to a specific user, thus still allowing a personalized experience for each individual user, in a manner where the processing burden is minimized on the downstream side or client device. This approach enables a consistent user experience, independent of client device capabilities, both static and dynamic. The cross-fade can be implemented after decoding the relevant chunks of each component clip, processing, recoding and rechunking, or, in a preferred embodiment, the cross-fade or other effect can be implemented on the relevant chunks to the effect in the compressed domain, thus obviating any loss of quality by re-encoding. A large scale personalized content delivery service can be implemented by limiting the processing to essentially the first and last chunks of any file, since there is no need to processing the full clip. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention this type of processing can easily be accommodated in cloud computing technology, where the first and last files may be conveniently extracted and processed within the cloud to meet the required load. Processing may also be done locally, for example, by the broadcaster, with sufficient processing power to manage peak load.

A method, apparatus, computer program product and computer accessible code configured to link or otherwise associate content filters with a multimedia presentation, e.g., a movie. The content filter data includes an identifier value with an aspect ratio identifier or as a function of an aspect ratio for a particular multimedia presentation associated with the filter information. In one implementation, association between a filter set and a multimedia presentation involves a filtering application that searches a particular multimedia presentation to locate aspect ratio information and further searches filter information for a matching aspect ratio identifier.

A multimedia file and methods of generating, distributing and using the multimedia file are described. Multimedia files in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can contain multiple video tracks, multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitle tracks, a complete index that can be used to locate each data chunk in each of these tracks and an abridged index that can enable the location of a subset of the data chunks in each track, data that can be used to generate a menu interface to access the contents of the file and ‘meta data’ concerning the contents of the file. Multimedia files in accordance with several embodiments of the present invention also include references to video tracks, audio tracks, subtitle tracks and ‘meta data’ external to the file. One embodiment of a multimedia file in accordance with the present invention includes a series of encoded video frames, a first index that includes information indicative of the location within the file and characteristics of each encoded video frame and a separate second index that includes information indicative of the location within the file of a subset of the encoded video frames.

A method, computer program product and computing device for selecting at least one playlist for transfer, the at least one playlist being stored on a first personal media device. The at least one playlist is converted to a common format, thus generating a first common format playlist. Communication is established with a second personal media device. The first common format playlist is transferred to the second personal media device.

Methods and apparatus for monitoring locally inserted media are disclosed. A disclosed system for detecting locally inserted media includes a tag encoder and a media monitoring device at a media presentation location. The tag encoder is to associate an identifying tag with a segment of a media stream carrying local media that was spliced into a primary media stream after the primary media stream was received by an editing station of a media distributor. The media monitoring device is to: detect presentation of the media stream; determine that the segment is local media that was spliced into the primary media stream based on changes in the media stream indicative of transitions between primary media and local media, the changes including changes in identifying tags; and store an indication to credit presentation of the media and to indicate that the media stream includes locally inserted media.

Systems and methods are presented for efficient cross-fading of compressed domain information streams on a user/client device. Exemplary systems may provide cross-fade between AAC/Enhanced AAC Plus information streams, between MP3 information streams, or between information streams of unmatched formats. These systems are distinguished in that cross-fade is directly applied to compressed bitstreams so a single decode operation is performed on the resulting bitstream. Thus, a set of frames from each input stream associated with the time interval in which a cross fade is decoded, and combined and recoded with a cross fade or other effect now in the compressed bitstream. Once sent through the client device's decoder, the user hears the transitional effect. The only input data that is decoded and processed is that associated with the portion of each stream used the crossfade, blend or other interstitial, and thus the vast majority of input streams are left compressed.

In one aspect, an example method includes (i) retrieving, from a text index, closed captioning repetition data for a segment of a sequence of media content; (ii) generating features using the closed captioning repetition data; (iii) providing the features as input to a classification model, wherein the classification model is configured to output classification data indicative of a likelihood of the features being characteristic of a program segment; (iv) obtaining the classification data output by the classification model; (v) determining a prediction of whether the segment is a program segment using the classification data; and (vi) storing the prediction for the segment in a database.

A machine includes a processor and a memory connected to the processor. The memory stores instructions executed by the processor to receive a message and a message parameter indicative of a characteristic of the message, where the message includes a photograph or a video. A determination is made that the message parameter corresponds to a selected gallery, where the selected gallery includes a sequence of photographs or videos. The message is posted to the selected gallery in response to the determination. The selected gallery is supplied in response to a request.