Abstract: Displaying visual information from a motion picture in a visual field within a designated extent of a related aural field supports editing of a spatial audio effect for the motion picture. The extent of a related aural field also is displayed. Information specifying a point of origin of a sound used in the spatial audio effect with respect to the visual field is received for each of a number of frames of a portion of the motion picture. This information may be received from a pointing device that indicates a point in the displayed extent of the aural field, or from a tracker that indicates a position of an object in the displayed visual information, or from a three-dimensional model of an object that indicates a position of an object in the displayed visual field. Using the specified point of origin and the relationship of the visual and aural fields, parameters of the spatial audio effect may be determined, from which a soundtrack may be generated.

Abstract: A system for the management of relational information between media sources, which includes a plurality of procedures to set and query the information. Relations are established either via interaction with the sources or by user's specifications. Further the invention provides for the separation of information concerning source relations, actual media stored for these sources, and binding of media to specific needs for the media within the system.

Abstract: A quadrature oscillator capable of lowering phase noise and power dissipation is disclosed. The oscillator circuit includes two symmetrical oscillators (11) (12) formed by cross-coupled transistor pairs with positive feedback structure to produce negative resistance, two LC circuits (13) (14) coupled to the above oscillators (11) (12) to produce positive resistance offsetting the negative resistance through the oscillators (11) (12), and two coupling circuits (15) (16) coupled to the oscillators (11) (12) to produce quadrature phase outputs, wherein, the transistor pairs in each coupling circuit (15) are respectively connected to the corresponding transistor pairs in the two oscillators (11) (12), to prevent the operating point of the oscillator transistors from shifting toward the linear region.

Abstract: To enable a user to rapidly identify one or more sets of values for parameters of an operation, templates are generated dynamically from sets of values already used for these parameters in content available to the system. Each unique set of values may be extracted from the currently available content. Each of these sets of values may be sorted, for example, by recent modification date, for presentation to a user. The user may then select a set of values from among those displayed for use in the operation.

Abstract: The problem of editing motion data can be solved by providing a way to specify control points (herein called “handles”) along the path of the motion data and to describe the motion data as a combination of layers of information describing the motion in relationship to these handles. A first layer may describe, for each point in the motion data, the distance of the point between the handles. For example, a path between two handles may be defined. Each point in the motion data is closest to a point along that path. That point along the line has a distance to the two handles. These distances may be defined as a percentage of the length of the path. A second layer may describe the offset of points in the motion data from the line between the two handles.

Abstract: Processing video data with a combination of one or more operations, such as special effects, on a general-purpose computer may be improved by enabling one or more operations to access and process multiple samples of video data from other operations that introduce latencies for each request for data. Operations that introduce latencies include, for example, hardware for decompression and compression, network interfaces, and file systems. Because a computer program to implement the operations may be executed on several different general-purpose platforms, exact specifications of available hardware are not known in advance. For each operation, a computer program determines the available system memory and an amount of data that can be processed by each operation used in a composition or portion of a composition while sharing the available memory with other operations. Available system memory is allocated among the operations being used.

Abstract: By providing an index that stores information about how to access each grouping of elements in an interleaved data stream and each element within each grouping, random access to each element in the interleaved data stream can be achieved. The index may store a temporal offset for each grouping for interleaved data streams in which the order of data samples in the interleaved data stream is different from the order in which those data samples are used to present the data stream. The information that allows each element in a grouping to be accessed may include information defining the length of each element, or information describing the relative position of each element in a grouping, such as a map table. Such a map table may have an entry for each data type, wherein each entry includes an indication of information used to access a sample of the data type.

Abstract: Multiple applications request data from multiple storage units over a computer network. The data is divided into segments and each segment is distributed randomly on one of several storage units, independent of the storage units on which other segments of the media data are stored. Redundancy information corresponding to each segment also is distributed randomly over the storage units. The redundancy information for a segment may be a copy of the segment, such that each segment is stored on at least two storage units. The redundancy information also may be based on two or more segments. This random distribution of segments of data and corresponding redundancy information improves both scalability and reliability. When a storage unit fails, its load is distributed evenly over to remaining storage units and its lost data may be recovered because of the redundancy information.

Abstract: The universal electronic identification tag is for use with a variety of readers of different designs including a control reader which can be used to control the operations of the universal tag. A reader interrogates a tag by transmitting a carrier. The universal tag comprises a transducer, a modulator connected across the transducer, and a control means. The control means causes the modulator to drive the transducer with a plurality of different message waveforms after interrogation by a reader, the tag identity being embedded in each of the message waveforms. The message waveforms can be transmitted either simultaneously, sequentially, or both ways. A message waveform is comprised of a sequence of contiguous waveform segments, each waveform segment representing the value of an N-bit group, N being an integer. A waveform segment is a periodic signal characterized by the parameters frequency, phase, and amplitude.

Abstract: A method of fabricating, a composition and overmolded components fabricated by the method and with the composition such as an overmolded transponder circuitry for a radio frequency identification device.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for implementing a smart management of a rechargeable battery provides the basic capabilities to measure the operating parameters of a rechargeable battery including voltage, temperature and current flow, used subsequently to control the flow of charge/discharge current and for determining the operation mode of the rechargeable battery. The control circuit includes a central processing unit to manage the charge/discharge operation and control the current flow; a trickle charger for slow charging; a cutoff switch to turn off the temperature detector; and an economizer switch to reduce power loss during normal charging of the battery. If the operating voltage of the battery is below a predetermined limit, the system automatically switches to a self-cutoff mode. Through a combination of the above control means, battery management for rechargeable batteries can be improved notably.

Abstract: A computer system on a computer network with shared storage and that is connected through a network to playback and other systems, enables editing systems using the shared storage to turn over responsibility for transferring data to these playback and other systems. Using information from an automation control system, such as a playlist, indicating the order in which stories are to be played back by a playback system, the computer system schedules the transfer of data to the playback system in an efficient manner. The computer system may maintain a queue of requests to transfer data for programs that is ordered according to the order of the programs in a playlist specified using, for example, broadcast automation control system.

Abstract: If graphics data is imported into and then exported from a nonlinear editing system several times, image quality tends to degrade due to multiple filtering operations applied to the graphics data on import. Sometimes, a portion of graphics data imported into a nonlinear editing system has been processed by a nonlinear editing system, whereas another portion has not. To avoid such degradation of image quality, portions of graphics data that have been previously filtered and decimated are identified and not filtered prior to decimation. Other portions of graphics data are filtered and decimated.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing fast data recovery with adaptive pulse code modulation (ADPCM) coding wherein, an ADPCM encoder periodically records the compressional parameters in memory together with regular compressed codes, and an ADPCM decoder retrieves the previously saved compressional parameters when reading the regular data from memory. In case any error occurs in the data compression and decompression processes which would cause a data divergence in the output of the ADPCM decoder, the previously saved compressional parameters can be used to correct the output data, thus enabling fast data recovery in the data outputting process without affecting downstream data in the data stream.

Abstract: An ellipsoid chroma region of a chroma plane may be defined to specify a range of chromas for which a secondary chroma modification is to be applied, and to determine an output chroma for each chroma of the chroma plane based on the ellipsoid chroma region. Further, two or more different-shaped chroma regions of a chroma plane may be defined and manipulated, each chroma region specifying a range of chroma for which a secondary chroma modification is to be applied, and to determine an output chroma for each chroma of the chroma plane based on the two or more different-shaped chroma regions. Also, chroma-matching techniques may be used to define and manipulate the chroma region of a chroma plane that specifies a range of chroma for which a secondary chroma modification is to be applied, and an output chroma may be determined for each chroma of the chroma plane based on the chroma region.

Abstract: A method and system is provided to avoid the duplicate storage and transfer of multimedia data in a playback device, thereby increasing system bandwidth and available playback memory. A multimedia composition describes an edited piece of audio and video multimedia data. The composition is created and transferred to a playback device. The composition is examined to determine whether the multimedia data referred to in the composition is already stored in the playback device. If the data is stored in the playback device, or in transit to the playback device, it is not transferred to the playback device.

Abstract: Multiple applications request data from multiple storage units over a computer network. The data is divided into segments and each segment is distributed randomly on one of several storage units, independent of the storage units on which other segments of the media data are stored. At least one additional copy of each segment also is distributed randomly over the storage units, such that each segment is stored on at least two storage units. This random distribution of multiple copies of segments of data improves both scalability and reliability. When an application requests a selected segment of data, the request is processed by the storage unit with the shortest queue of requests. Random fluctuations in the load applied by multiple applications on multiple storage units are balanced nearly equally over all of the storage units.

Abstract: Systems and methods for correlating color correction instruction between two color correcting devices are disclosed. The method includes performing a nulling test on a representation a first device has of a known standard and retaining the results of the test. A second color correcting device performs a nulling test on the same known standard and the results of this test are retained. From the results of these two tests a color correction instruction of one of the devices may be converted to a color correction instruction on the other device so that substantially the same color correction effect is achieved.

Abstract: Creating a transition between a first sequence of video frames and a second sequence of video frames. The method includes storing a table of values that express a non-linear response to certain levels of light, generating a transition between the sequences, and adjusting the intensity at which material of the first sequence is displayed relative to the intensity at which material of the second sequence is displayed within the transition, based on the values stored in the step of storing.

Abstract: Audio associated with a video program, such as an audio track or live or recorded commentary, may be analyzed to recognize or detect one or more predetermined sound patterns, such as words or sound effects. The recognized or detected sound patterns may be used to enhance video processing, by controlling video capture and/or delivery during editing, or to facilitate selection of clips or splice points during editing.