Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

John Bradstreet

Glenn Frederick Evans

Matthijs Arjan Gates

Jonathan Edgar Fay

Daniel Gwozdz

Edward W Connell

Steven Andrew Cover

Tanuja Joshi

John Bronskill

Ajai Sehgal

Alvy Ray Smith

Luke Wabaunsee McCullough

Nicholas John Clay

Rebecca Claire Weiss

Thaddeus C Pritchett

Bryan A Woodruff

Shannon B Vosseller

David Ethan Zoller

Jonathan L Conradt

Arthur Francis Champernowne

Ross Hewit

John D Canning

Jan M Hofmeyr

Evans Glenn

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed that relate to providing interactive television by synchronizing content to live and/or recorded television shows. Content is synchronized without the use of in-band triggers. A broadcast stream is received, and search/action pairs are received from a transmission path, such as from the Internet or user. When the search criteria are found in the broadcast stream, the associated action is performed and the content is synchronized with the show. An application programming interface is used to facilitate synchronization, and includes a set search method, a search function template method, and a clear search method. The set search method initiates searching of the broadcast stream and registers one or more callback methods for performing the associated action when the match is found. The search function template serves as the template for registering the callback methods. The clear search method clears the system resources from the search.

Triggerless interactive television

Content ratings and recommendations is described. In an embodiment, a ratings service compiles ratings of programs for a rating system that is associated with a group of viewers, where a viewer of the group establishes the rating system, and where at least some of the viewers of the group rate the programs for the group of viewers. A recommendation service then provides program recommendations to the viewers of the group based on the rating system.

Content ratings and recommendations

Methods, systems, and computer program products for arbitrarily indexing multimedia content. In accordance with example embodiments, a multimedia content stream that comprises one or more samples is received. At least one of the samples is passed to one or more multimedia filters for analysis based on criteria that define an index type for the multimedia filter. Once it is determined that the sample meets the criteria for an arbitrary filter and index type, an index entry that identifies both the sample and the index type of the arbitrary filter is created. The index entry is adapted in accordance with a common, extensible indexing scheme to coexist with other index entries of other or the same index type for the sample. The created index entry is stored for subsequent access.

User-defined indexing of multimedia content

Methods, systems and architectures for processing renderable digital content are described. The various embodiments can protect against unauthorized access or duplication of unprotected content (i.e. decrypted content) once the content has reached a rendering device such as a user's computer. A flexible framework includes an architecture that allows for general media sources to provide virtually any type of multimedia content to any suitably configured rendering device. Content can be protected and rendered locally and/or across networks such as the Internet. The various embodiments can provide a standard platform that can that can be leveraged to protect content across a wide variety of rendering environments, content types, and DRM techniques.

Secure media path methods, systems, and architectures

A method, system and/or computer program product for managing the use of media content ratings information by a media content receiver, including communicating media content for presentation by a media content receiver; communicating media content ratings information for the media content, the media content ratings information being communicated discretely from the media content. The communicating operations include one or both of transmitting and receiving the content and/or ratings information.

Management of media content ratings information communicated discretely from media content

A computing system such as a Programmable Video Recorder (PVR) receives broadcast data and enhanced file-state data from a data source. The broadcast data may include multimedia data. The enhanced file-state data may include web-based data such as ATVEF data. The PVR buffers the broadcast data and the enhanced file-state data in a backing store that is associated with the PVR. The PVR also creates an index for indexing the enhanced file-state data so that, when the broadcast data is rendered, the correct file-state data can be located and rendered at the appropriate time with the broadcast data. The index may classify the enhanced file-state data by GUID, sequence number, and valid start and end times associated with corresponding broadcast data. The index may also include pointers for locating the enhanced file-state data from the buffer of the PVR.

Time-shifting and synchronizing content and enhanced file-based state data

Methods, systems and architectures for processing renderable digital content are described. The various embodiments can protect against unauthorized access or duplication of unprotected content (i.e. decrypted content) once the content has reached a rendering device such as a user's computer. A flexible framework includes an architecture that allows for general media sources to provide virtually any type of multimedia content to any suitably configured rendering device. Content can be protected and rendered locally and/or across networks such as the Internet. The inventive architecture can allow third parties to write components and for the components to be securely and flexibly incorporated into a processing chain. The components can be verified by one or more authenticators that are created and then used to walk the chain of components to verify that the components are trusted. The various embodiments can thus provide a standard platform that can that can be leveraged to protect content across a wide variety of rendering environments, content types, and DRM techniques.

An image processing application employs the concept of integral pre-multiplied alpha channel, and combines the techniques of multi-resolution representation, graph-structured representation, and automatic and intelligent data type conversion in order to permit a computer user to mix and manipulate both raster and vector based images in a single user interface while remaining unaware of the different data types underlying the images.

Mixed but indistinguishable raster and vector image data types

A method and system for undoing interactive editing operations enables efficient undoing of multiple non-invertable editing operations such as digital painting strokes. During the editing process, a plurality of prior states of the data object being edited at uneven intervals are stored. To undo an editing operation, the object being edited is restored to a stored prior state that came before the operation to be undone was performed. Previously performed editing operations between the restored state and the operation to be undone are then reapplied to the data object to recreate the state of the object right before the operation to be undone was performed. A balance between the speed of the multiple-undo operation and the amount of memory required to store selected prior states is achieved by storing prior states at intervals that increase generally exponentially with a base of two. An efficient mechanism is provided for updating the list of stored prior states during the editing process.

Method and system for undoing multiple editing operations

A method and apparatus is provided for an efficient way to perform a transformation of vectors, such as color vectors of pixels in a digital image. The transformation involves the sequential operation of a set of input functions, a transformation matrix, and a set of output functions on an input vector to generate an output vector. For a given matrix, a plurality of look-up tables are generated, each look-up table is associated with a vector element and stores words each corresponding to a possible value of the associated vector element. Each word in a look-up table has multiple segments, and each segment represents the product of a matrix element and the result of operation of a respective input function on the possible value of the associated vector element. For a given input vector, the look-up tables are referenced to obtain words corresponding to the values of the input vector elements. The words obtained from the look-up tables are added to produce a resultant word. The resultant word is then parsed into segments, and the segments are passed through respective output functions to derive respective elements of the output vector.

Method and apparatus for vector transformation involving a

A method and apparatus for painting a digital picture using strokes of a digital brush is provided. The painting strokes entered by a user is handled using a 'lazy' processing approach, in which a region of the picture being painted is updated according to the entered strokes only when that region is to be displayed for viewing. To this end, the painting strokes are recorded as an ordered sequence of painting steps. The digital picture being painted is partitioned into a plurality of individual regions, and each region is assigned an age which indicates a painting step in the ordered sequence that is last applied to that region. When a region becomes visible, i.e., it is displayed for viewing, the age of the region is checked, and all of the painting steps in the ordered sequence that are after the step indicated by the age of the region are then applied to the region so that it becomes up-to-date. The age of that region is updated accordingly.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

John Bradstreet