Identifying and storing a target information unit contained in a received information stream

#This invention relates generally to communications and data processing, and more particularly to identifying and storing a target information unit contained in a received information stream.

#Persons encounter information in various forms and in various units on a regular basis. Songs, television programs, and movies are examples of information units persons frequently encounter. A person may desire to record one or more such information units for later playback. For example, a person may record a song broadcast from a radio station for later playback. Personally recording a song, however, often requires a person to monitor the radio airwaves until the desired song is played and, once the person identifies the desired song as the one currently being played, to attempt to record as much of the song as possible. This process may be time consuming, may result in a person missing the first few seconds of the song before beginning to record the song, and may result in the song being missed because the person can typically monitor only one radio station at a time. These and other deficiencies have made previous techniques for identifying and storing information units, such as songs, inadequate for many persons.

#According to the present invention, disadvantages and problems associated with previous recording systems may be reduced or eliminated.

#For a more complete understanding of the present invention and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 illustrates an example communications environment including user devices and information streams;

#FIG. 2 illustrates an example system associated with a user device and supporting identification and storage of one or more target information units contained in one or more received information streams; FIG. 3 illustrates example tag files for which the corresponding target information units are songs;

#FIG. 1 illustrates an example communications environment 10 including user devices 12 and information streams 14. System 10 includes one or more user devices 12 that, in general, can each identify and store one or more target information units contained in one or more received information streams 14. Each information stream 14 typically includes multiple information units, any one or more of which may be target information units desired by associated users. Each target information unit has predetermined length and may be identified and stored according to a tag file corresponding to the target information unit and including a first set of attributes associated with the target information unit. In general, a user device 12 accesses a digitized data stream representing a received information stream 14, extracts a second set of one or more attributes from a portion of the digitized data stream, and compares the second set of one or more attributes extracted from the portion of the digitized data stream with the first set of one or more attributes in the stored tag file. According to the comparison, user device 12 determines whether the portion of the digitized data stream includes the target information unit. If so, user device 12 stores the portion of the digitized data stream including the target information unit, the stored portion of the digitized data stream having a length substantially equivalent to the predetermined length of the target information unit.

#User devices 12 may include Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) Audio Layer 3 (MP3) players, computers, televisions, stereos, or any other suitable devices capable of identifying and storing a target information unit contained in a received information stream 14. Received information streams 14 may include one or more of the following: (1) a broadcast radio signal (including an amplitude modulation (AM) signal, frequency modulation (FM) signal, an Internet radio broadcast, or any other suitable broadcast radio signal); (2) a broadcast television signal (including a satellite signal, digital cable signal, or any other suitable broadcast television signal); (3) an audio signal (including a Wave (WAV) file, REAL AUDIO (RA) file, or any other suitable audio signal); (4) a video signal (including an MPEG file, audio/video interleaved (AVI) file, REAL VIDEO (RV) file, or any other suitable video signal); (5) or any other type of suitable signal for containing a target information unit to be identified and stored according to the present invention. Furthermore, received information stream 14 may include an analog signal, such as with the AM or FM broadcast radio signal for example, or a digital signal, such as with a broadcast Internet radio signal for example.

#In the specific case where user device 12 includes an MP3 player, for example, received information stream 14 may be a broadcast radio signal such as an analog radio signal. In this example, the information units within received information stream 14 may be songs, and the target information unit desired by a user associated with user device 12 may be a desired song. A tag file corresponding to a desired song and stored at user device 12 may include a first set of measurable attributes of the song, for example: (1) the playing time or other predetermined length of the song; (2) one or more values for one or more target segments of the song, each value generated by applying a Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or other operation to the corresponding target segment; (3) one or more sequences of specific frequencies, corresponding to notes, within each of one or more target segments of the song; (4) average tempo within one or more target segments of the song; (5) any other suitable frequency, tempo, or other characteristics of each of one or more target segments of the song; and (6) any other information suitable for identifying the song, when compared with similar information in a second set of measurable attributes extracted from a portion of a digitized data stream representing a received information stream 14, and storing the song once it has been identified. User device 12 may store multiple tag files. Each tag file may correspond to a different song, or multiple tag files may correspond to the same song, according to particular needs. Tag files are described in more detail below with reference to FIG. 3.