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AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsHal Hjalmar Ottesen, Gordon J. Smith, George Willard VanLeeuwen
Estimating the term…
An apparatus and method for effectuating local reception and processing of source program signals representative of a compressed digital multimedia program received from a remote multimedia server are disclosed. The multimedia server transmits a selected multimedia program as a custom ordered series of discrete program segments to a local set-top control system, which buffers and decompresses the compressed program segments for presentation on a local display monitor. A local set-top control system preferably includes a direct access storage device adapted to buffer a predetermined number of compressed program segments received from a multimedia server, some of which may be non-sequentially ordered and others of which may be sequentially ordered. A novel formatting methodology provides for the sequential presentation of the program segments asynchronously distributed on one or more data storage disks disposed in the direct access storage device. A user-definable presentation control window for performing local VCR-type presentation control functions for the portion of a multimedia program buffered in the direct access storage device is also provided through the novel formatting methodology. The novel formatting methodology also provides concurrent presentation and buffering of program segments received from the multimedia server for on-demand viewing of a selected multimedia program.
A multimedia control system, coupled to a display and a communication channel, for communicating with a remote multimedia server over the communication channel, the remote multimedia server transmitting to the multimedia control system a multimedia program segmented into a custom ordered series of source program segments, each of the source program segments being representative of a unique portion of the multimedia program, and the custom ordered series including non-consecutively ordered source program segments corresponding to non-consecutive portions of the multimedia program, the multimedia control system comprising:
A multimedia control system, coupled to a display and a communication channel, for communicating with a remote multimedia series that transmits coded source program segments representative of non-consecutive portions of a multimedia program as a custom ordered series of source program segments over a communication channel, the multimedia control system comprising:
A method for locally controlling the presentation of a multimedia program received from a remote multimedia server as a custom ordered series of source program segments, each of the source program segments representing a unique portion of the multimedia program and the custom ordered series including non-consecutively ordered source program segments corresponding to non-consecutive portions of the multimedia program, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.