US 7,308,489 B2 · Visibility of media contents of UPnP media servers and initiating rendering via file system user interface

Abstract

A computing device is equipped with file system services and media related services that automatically make visible to a user of the computing device, through an user interface of the file system, availability of media contents, on discovery of the availability of the media contents from one or more UPNP media servers. In various embodiments, the file system services and the media related services are further equipped to cause a selected one of the media contents to be rendered by an appropriate one of UPNP media renders, in response to a request to “render” the selected one of the media contents. In other embodiments, the file system services and the media related services may also facilitate removal of discovered media contents as well as addition of media contents to a media server.

Claims26

Dependent claims

In a networked computing device of a network domain, an automated method of operation comprising:

discovering first media contents available from a UPNP media server of the network domain;
in response to said discovery, automatically creating first corresponding entries in a file system of the networked computing device for the first media contents available from the first UPNP media server, to enable the availability of the first media contents be visible to a user of the networked computing device through an user interface of the file system of the networked computing device;
discovering at least some of the first media contents being available from a second UPNP media server of the network domain, the second UPNP media server being separate and distinct from the first UPNP media server;
and
in response to said discovery of said first media contents being available from the second UPNP media server, updating said first corresponding entries to denote the at least some of the first media contents as being also available from the second UPNP media server.

2 more elements

A computing device comprising

storage medium having stored therein a plurality of programming instructions designed to provide
(a) file system services of a file system, and
(b) media related services including a media content management service that
automatically causes entries corresponding to first media contents to be created in the file system to makes visible, through a user interface of the file system, availability of the first media contents, on discovery of the availability of the first media contents from a first UPNP media server of a network domain,
discovers at least some of the first media contents being available from a second UPNP media server of the network domain, the second UPNP media server being separate and distinct from the first UPNP media server, and
in response to said discovery of said first media contents being available from the second UPNP media server, updates said first corresponding entries to denote the at least some of the first media contents as being also available from the second UPNP media server;
and
at least one processor coupled to the storage medium to execute the programming instructions.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Visibility of media contents of UPnP media servers and initiating rendering via file system user interface

Life of this patent

Visibility of media contents of UPnP media servers and initiating rendering via file system user interface

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims26