Techniques for relating arbitrary metadata to media files

Abstract

A metadata text file is used to make media files searchable and rearrangeable. The metadata text file is associated with one or more media files and includes a sequence of relaters that relate items of metadata to segments of the media files. The relater specifies the item of metadata and the segment of the media file. The metadata text file can be searched for an item of metadata and when the item of metadata is found, the item's relater can be used to locate the media file segment that corresponds to the item of metadata. The metadata text file can also be used to “play” the metadata files by displaying segments from the files in the order in which the relaters occur in the metadata file. New combinations of segments of media files may be made by adding, deleting, or reordering the relaters in the metadata text file. The metadata text file is used to relate metadata to media files in a system for making fan vids, in a system for comparing the text of a book with a movie made from the book, and in a system that uses temperature and humidity readings from pots being used to cook a recipe to locate sections of a cooking video.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.