Central Device Consolidating Content Streams via Thumbnail Mosaic
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems fail to effectively monitor and consolidate content consumption across multiple devices within a home network, making it difficult for users to track all content being received, displayed, or recorded simultaneously.
Innovation Solution
A central device identifies and retrieves secondary streams of content from multiple devices, generating a mosaic display interface with thumbnails to provide an overview of content consumption across the network, allowing users to monitor all devices from a single interface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a central device retrieves and consolidates content streams from multiple devices, then monitoring capability is improved, but system resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only essential monitoring information (content consumption data) from multiple devices rather than transmitting complete content streams. The central device receives and processes minimal data packets containing content identification, device status, and consumption metrics, enabling effective monitoring while conserving system resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements partial monitoring by selectively tracking content consumption events rather than continuously monitoring all device activities. The central device processes content consumption data only when events occur (content played, paused, stopped), reducing overall resource consumption while maintaining effective oversight of content usage patterns.
2Loss of information
If content consumption data from multiple devices is consolidated and displayed, then user visibility is improved, but interface complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the consolidated content consumption data into distinct, device-specific sections within the user interface. Each device's content consumption is displayed in a separate module or card, making it easy for users to identify and navigate through different devices' activities without being overwhelmed by a single complex aggregated view.
Solution Approach 2:
The interface applies local quality by providing detailed content consumption information specifically for each device while maintaining an overall simplified layout. Each device section displays relevant content details (title, duration, progress) tailored to that device's consumption patterns, allowing users to focus on specific devices of interest without processing information from all devices simultaneously.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer readable media can be operable to facilitate the generation of an interface showing content being consumed by a group of devices. A central device may gather secondary streams of content consumed by each device within the group of devices, and the secondary streams may be used to generate an interface comprising thumbnails showing content consumed by the device associated with the respective thumbnail. Secondary streams of content may be generated at the central device or may be retrieved by the central device from a client device serviced by the central device.