Ambience Control via Metadata Linking
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems for entertainment distribution, such as ambilight, lack a seamless integration of ambience control with audio-video content, limiting the types and quality of ambience effects and requiring proprietary solutions or dynamic content analysis, which are inefficient and restrictive.
Innovation Solution
A system that includes a content provider, metadata provider, and user terminal with an ambience generator and controller, where metadata links ambience control data with audio-video content using content reference identifiers, allowing for pre-defined or user-selected ambience effects, and supports multiple versions and devices, enabling flexible and economical ambience delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If dynamic content analysis is used to generate ambience effects, then the ambience can adapt to content, but the system complexity and processing requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-defining ambience effects and their parameters before content delivery. Instead of analyzing content dynamically at the user terminal, the content provider pre-processes and packages ambience effect data with the content. This shifts the computational burden to the content provider side while simplifying the user terminal, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the complex content analysis and ambience generation functions from the user terminal and relocates them to the content provider. By separating the ambience control data from the content delivery system and providing it as a standalone service, the system reduces terminal complexity while maintaining content-adaptive ambience capabilities.
2Ease of operation
If proprietary ambience solutions are implemented, then the ambience control can be integrated with content, but the system becomes restrictive and less compatible with existing standards
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universality by designing the ambience control system to work with multiple content formats and delivery mechanisms. The ambience effect data is structured as generic metadata that can accompany various content types (video, audio, live streams) and be delivered through different channels (broadcast, internet, local storage). This allows seamless integration with existing standards like TV-Anytime while maintaining broad compatibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer in the form of standardized ambience control data that acts as a mediator between the content provider and the user terminal. This intermediary data structure serves as a universal interface that can be generated by any content provider and interpreted by any compliant terminal, enabling easy integration without proprietary restrictions.
3Ease of manufacture
If ambience data is embedded in existing data protocols, then the solution becomes economical to realize, but the data structure complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges ambience control data with existing content delivery protocols and metadata structures. Instead of creating a separate proprietary protocol, the ambience data is integrated into standard metadata formats that are already part of content packaging specifications. This approach reduces implementation costs by reusing existing infrastructure while managing data structure complexity through standardized schemas.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for supporting entertainment distribution via at least one network comprises a content provider (100) for distributing a program; a metadata provider (102) for distributing metadata, the metadata including a content reference identifier of the program and data relating to ambience complementing the program. The system further comprises a user terminal (118) comprising an input (106) for receiving the metadata; an input (106) for receiving the program using the content reference identifier; a rendering unit (116) for rendering the received program; an ambience generator (108) for generating an ambient effect different from audio or video; and an ambience controller (110) for controlling the ambience generator synchronously with the rendering of the content, based on the received data relating to ambience complementing the program.