In general, the subject matter described in this disclosure can be embodied in describes methods, systems, and other mechanisms for previewing a video in response to computing device interaction. The method includes presenting, on a display of a computing device, a graphical indication of a video; identifying, by the computing device, that first user input interacted with the computing device; presenting, by the computing device, an animation of a preview of the video in response to the computing device having identified that the first user input interacted with the computing device; identifying, by the computing device, that the first user input stopped interacting with the computing device; stopping, by the computing device, the animation of the preview of the video in response to the computing device having identified that the first user input stopped interacting with the computing device.

An imaging device includes an imaging unit that captures light which is formed into an image through an optical system capable of housing a lens with operating force by a user; an operating unit operated by the user; a display unit that displays an image; and a controller that is capable of setting a playback mode which is an operating mode to display on the display unit an image represented by image data stored in a storage medium, and an operating mode other than the playback mode, and that sets the playback mode when the lens is housed, regardless of whether or not operation to set the playback mode has been accepted through the operating unit.

Some embodiments of the present invention provide methods for use in playing back content. Some of these methods access a content package comprising media content to be locally played back; detect, as defined by the content package, whether a remote secondary device is available with which a connection can be established; determine whether an authorization to establish the connection has been confirmed; establish, when the authorization is confirmed, a communication connection; determine, as instructed by the content package and when the communication with the secondary device is established, whether one or more commands are received from the secondary device; and implement, as instructed by the content package and when it is determined that the one or more commands are received from the secondary device, the one or more commands in controlling playback experience of the media content.

Methods of operating a communications system comprise, in one example, inserting advertising in a program stream by a receiving device based, at least in part, on an encrypted segmentation message embedded in the program steam. The at least one segmentation message defines an expanse of the program stream to receive the advertising. At least one embedded decoy message is included in the program stream, as well. In one example the receiving device, which may be a set-top terminal, for example, is coupled to a display device, such as a television, at a user location. A method of operating a receiving device coupled to a display device at a user location is also disclosed, comprising programming the receiving device to record a program and recording the program based, at least in part, on at least one segmentation message in a program stream. Systems are disclosed, as well.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a computer-implemented method that includes using a reinforcement learning (RL) system to generate a first set of displayed region candidates based on inputs received from online users while watching video. A recommendation system is used to rank the first set of displayed region candidates based on inputs received from a local user watching video. The recommendation system is further used to select a first highest ranked one of the first set of displayed region candidates. Based on the first highest ranked one of the first set of displayed region candidates, a first section of a first raw video frame is fetched that matches the first highest ranked one of the first set of displayed candidate regions, wherein the first section of the first raw video frame includes a first predicted display region of the video frame.

Systems and methods for transmitting a multimedia stream over a communication link on a network are disclosed. The systems and methods adaptively adjust encoding parameters based on monitoring changing conditions of the network. A transmitter includes an adaptive-rate encoder that adaptively adjusts a video encoding bit rate in response to changing conditions of the communication link. The encoder maintains tight rate control by utilizing slice processing and sub-frame rate adaptation, as well as maintaining a headroom between the channel bit rate and the video encoding bit rate. The adaptive-rate encoder also embeds intra-frame constraints in predictive frames traffic in order to reduce latency.

An audiovisual signal processing device including a signal processing unit configured to receive a video signal comprising a plurality of images; identify at least first and second video components of the video signal, the first video component relating to motion of the first video component between at least a first portion of the plurality of images and the second video component relating to a substantial lack of motion of the second video component between at least a second portion of the plurality of images; select at least one image from the second portion of the plurality of images including the second video component; and insert the first video component into a plurality of the selected at least one image to create a temporally repeating sequence of the at least one image including the first video component.

A multispeed playback system is described herein that allows for playback of smooth streaming media presentations at speeds other than the normal speed or direction, while still using an underlying platform that does not natively support multispeed. The system provides frames to the underlying platform so that the platform is still playing 1× content while the system manipulates video and/or audio samples being fed to the platform to make rendered data look appropriately for a selected speed and direction. The system may feed the underlying platform frames at a faster rate or skip every other frame for faster playback, or may feed each frame to the underlying platform multiple times for slower playback. Thus, the multispeed playback system allows a client application developer to provide users with expected multispeed playback at the client without encoding multiple different streams at the server.

A system is provided for providing a trickplay operation using a digital video recorder (DVR) when the video includes Broadcom Transport Packets (BTPs) designed for MPEG-2, but in an MPEG-4 video steam. In a first embodiment, to enable trickplay to function properly with MPEG-4 video, the BTP descriptors included with each group of data frames are disabled so that a single descriptor provided without BTPs that would otherwise be provided in MPEG-4 is all that remains. In a second embodiment, the 5 descriptors for MPEG-4 are combined into a single descriptor. In a third embodiment, the pace of decoding of the MPEG-4 descriptors is increased so that the speed of encoding all the 5 descriptors is comparable to the pace of decoding a single MPEG-2 descriptor.

Systems and methods for recording multiple copies of a program are provided. The method may include receiving a user instruction to record a program. A determination may be made to record multiple copies of the program. In response to the determination, multiple copies of the program may be recorded. A user instruction to display the recorded program may be received. A copy of the program may be played back. The user may switch to another copy of the recorded program if the original copy lacks desirable recording attributes, or the interactive television application may automatically switch to another copy of the program.