Apple Inc.

Aaron M Eppolito

Conner Stuart Richardson

Wendy L DeVore

Giovanni M Agnoli

Brian Everett Meaney

Colleen M Pendergast

Iroro F Orife

Linda L Dong

Mike Stern

Kelly B Jacklin

Adam J Leonard

David E Conry

Michaelle Stikich

Zachary H Smith

Gregory L Dudey

Anne E Fink

A method for adjusting the sound volume of media clips using volume adjuster lines is provided. The volume adjuster lines are individually set for each clip based on the intrinsic, or absolute, volume values of the clip. In some embodiments, the volume adjuster lines are set for each clip based on the peak value or a calculated loudness equivalent of the clip. A user can move the volume adjuster line to set the absolute sound level of a clip. The volume adjuster lines can be hidden in some embodiments. In these embodiments, dragging on any portion of a clip is treated as dragging on the volume adjuster line. Some embodiments provide a deformable volume adjuster line, or curve. In these embodiments, a single audio clip can have several different volume adjuster lines for different sections of the clip where the volume adjuster line for each section is individually adjustable.

Optimized volume adjustment

Some embodiments provide a media compositing method that performs automated processes (1) to analyze the media content pieces (MCPs) to define one or more MCP groups, and (2) produces a user interface (UI) layout that identifies the defined MCP groups as groups for which the method can display composite presentations (e.g., video presentations). To define the MCP groups, the method of some embodiments uses one or more media grouping templates (MGTs). In some embodiments, the method can define multiple MGT instances for an MGT. For instance, in some embodiments, the MGTs include (1) location-bounded MGTs (e.g., videos and/or photos captured within a region with a particular radius), (2) time-bounded MGTs (e.g., videos and/or photos captured within a particular time range and/or date range), (3) time-bounded and location-bounded MGTs (e.g., mornings at a beach), (4) content-defined MGTs (e.g., videos and/or photos containing smiles), and (5) user-metadata based MGTs (e.g., MCPs from albums created by the user, MCPs shared by a user with others, MCPs having particular user-defined metadata tags, etc.).

Grouping media content for automatically generating a media presentation

A method to author music. The method includes generating, based on a collection of media clips stored on a device, an audio component for an audio/video (A/V) presentation, determining a plurality of locations within the audio component where a beat, onset, segment boundary, or stinger occurs within the audio component, selecting a particular location in the plurality of locations as a transition location, generating, based the collection of media clips and the transition location within the audio component, a video component for the A/V presentation, and generating the A/V presentation based on the audio component and the video component.

Synchronizing audio and video components of an automatically generated audio/video presentation

Some embodiments provide an audio authoring method that provide a set authoring tools for specifying rules for combining sections of a first song to generate a second song. The set of authoring tools allow an array of cells to be arranged in first and second directions, and allow each body section to be associated with one set of cells that are arranged in the first direction and another set of cells that are arranged in the second direction. At each cell that belongs to one set of cells arranged in the first direction for a first body section and another set of cells arranged in the second direction for a second body section, the set of tools also allow the user to specify whether the second body section is allowed to follow the first body section. Some embodiments provide a method for compositing audio. The method receives (1) several song sections, and (2) for each particular song section, a priority value and a set of succession rules that identify a set of song sections that cannot follow the particular song section. Based on the priority values, the method adds the song sections to the first song until a desired first-song duration is reached without exceeding the duration or until all song sections have been examined for adding to the first song. The method then analyzes a sequence of song sections in the first song to remove any song section that violates a succession rule.

Audio authoring and compositing

Some embodiments provide an application that can automatically generate a movie from a collection of media clips stored on a device or accessible by the device. The movie creation process of some embodiments uses novel video and audio compositors that dynamically composite video and audio components of the movie. The video compositors process explores different combination of media clips and media-clip arrangements to produce an interesting video presentation. The audio compositor receives the duration of the video presentation, and dynamically generates a song for the video presentation based on this duration. Another novel interaction is that in some embodiments the audio compositor provides the starting location of its last segment to the video compositor so that the video compositor can align the start of the last video segment with this ending segment. In some embodiments, the video and audio compositors also synchronize fade-out effects that they apply to their respective presentations with each other. Also, in some embodiments, the video compositor can ask the audio compositor for one or more audio onsets that are near a particular time in the presentation. In some of these embodiments, the audio compositor returns (1) a list of onsets that are near a time that is specified by the video compositor, and (2) a priority for each of these onsets. The video compositor then uses this list of onsets to align an edit point in the composite video's definition to the location of one of the onsets based the specified priority value(s) and the desirability of the video edit at the onset location.

Some embodiments of the invention provides a media editing application that includes tools to perform a variety of different editing operations based on roles assigned to media content. In some embodiments, the media editing application includes focus-editing tools to emphasize or de-emphasize different sets of clips based on the assigned roles. In some embodiments, the media editing application allows one or more sets of clips to be disabled or enabled during playback based on the assigned roles.

Role-facilitated editing operations

For media clips having audio content, a novel method for applying panning behaviors to the audio content is presented. The method receives a selection of a media clip having audio content and a selection of a panning preset for modifying a set of audio parameters of the audio content to create an audio panning effect. Each panning preset is associated with several sets of values where each set of values corresponds to the set of audio parameters. The audio parameters include parameters for determining a distribution of the audio content across a multi-channel output system. The method applies each the sets of values associated with the selected panning preset to successive portions of the audio content in order to control the distribution of the audio content to the multi-channel output system.

Panning presets

Some embodiments provide a media editing application that uses metadata or metadata tags associated with media content to facilitate editing operations. In some embodiments, the editing operations are performed on the media content at various different stages of the editing process in order to create a composite presentation. In creating the composite presentation, one or more effects are associated with a metadata tag. Once the effects are associated, the media editing application applies the effects to different pieces of media content tagged with the metadata tag in order to create the composite presentation.

Editing operations facilitated by metadata

A method for displaying reference waveforms to facilitate visual identification of different points such as maximum points and minimum points of an audio clip is provided. The reference waveform includes points that correspond to points on the original audio waveform, except that some or all points on the reference waveform are accentuated to easily identify the positions of the corresponding points on the audio waveform. The reference waveforms are especially useful when an audio waveform (or at least a portion of the clip) has low volume which makes the visual identification of the maximums and minimums of the waveform difficult. Displaying the reference waveform which accentuates the peaks and valleys of the original waveform facilitates the identification of these maximums and minimums.

Reference waveforms

For a media clip that includes audio content, a novel method for performing dynamic range compression of the audio content is presented. The method performs an analysis of the audio content. Based on the analysis of the audio content, the method generates a setting for an audio compressor that compresses the dynamic range of the audio content. The generated setting includes a set of audio compression parameters that include a noise gating threshold parameter ('noise gate'), a dynamic range compression threshold parameter ('threshold'), and a dynamic range compression ratio parameter (&#x201c;ratio&#x201d;).

Automatic detection of audio compression parameters

Some embodiments provide a media-editing application for identifying a set of background audio segments of a composite presentation, generating additional background audio segments based on several identified background audio segments, detecting regions of the composite presentation that lack background audio, and inserting generated background audio into the detected regions of the composite presentation.

Background audio processing

For an audio file that includes multiple channels of audio data, a novel device for detecting the configuration of the audio channels in the multi-channel audio file is presented. The device performs one or more algorithms to determine whether two or more channels are related. Such algorithms are used to distinguish stereo recordings from dual mono recordings. The algorithms are also used to detect any number of related channels, such as distinguishing six related channels from a set of surround sound microphones versus six unrelated channels (e.g., mono or a mixture of stereo and mono audio channels, etc.) These algorithms compare audio channels in pairs in order to determine which channels are sufficiently related as to constitute a stereo pair or a group.

Detection of audio channel configuration

A panner is provided that incorporates a surround sound decoder. The panner takes as input the desired panning effect that a user requests, separates sounds using surround sound decoding, and places the separated sounds in the desired places in an output sound field.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

Aaron M Eppolito