Continuous Episode Playback With Automatic Credit Skipping

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Solution Overview

Problem

Modern media distribution systems lack the ability to allow users to watch sequential media content items, such as TV show episodes, continuously without interruptions, and their fast-forward and rewind functionalities are inefficient, leading to suboptimal bandwidth usage and user experience.

Innovation Solution

A media delivery application that operates in a continuous watching mode, automatically skipping irrelevant portions like title and end credits, and seamlessly merging multiple episodes into a single virtual media asset, enabling smooth fast-forward and rewind operations without user intervention.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If media distribution systems deliver sequential episodes from remote servers, then users can access multiple episodes, but playback is interrupted by credits and delivery delays between episodes

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontinuous playback capabilityVSAvoidinterruption time between episodes

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system merges multiple sequential episodes into a single continuous playback stream by pre-buffering multiple episodes and seamlessly transitioning between them, eliminating interruptions caused by individual episode delivery delays and credits

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-downloading and buffering multiple episodes before playback begins, so that episodes are already available locally and can be played continuously without waiting for remote server delivery during viewing

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Ease of operation

If skip buttons are provided to bypass credits, then users can skip irrelevant content, but user response delay still interrupts continuous playback

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecredit skipping capabilityVSAvoiduser response delay

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs self-service by automatically detecting credit sequences and skipping them without requiring user input, using algorithms to identify and bypass title credits and end credits autonomously during playback

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary action by pre-identifying and marking credit segments in the episode data structure before playback begins, so that automatic skipping can occur without real-time user intervention

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Ease of operation

If fast-forward and rewind are implemented for individual episodes, then users can navigate within episodes, but navigating across episode boundaries requires separate episode requests

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveepisode navigation capabilityVSAvoidepisode boundary handling complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system merges multiple episodes into a unified playback stream with continuous timestamp indexing, allowing fast-forward and rewind operations to seamlessly cross episode boundaries without requiring separate episode requests or complex boundary detection

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentUS20250373869A1Systems and methods for providing media content for continuous watching

Publication Date: 2025.12.04 ADEIA GUIDES INC

AI summary

Methods and systems are described for providing media content for continuous watching. A rewind command is received while a first episode of a series is generated for display. In response, and without detecting a further command to skip a portion of an episode, the first episode of the series is rewound. Then, in response to rewinding the first episode to the beginning, title credits of the first episode and end credits of a previous episode of the series are automatically skipped; and the previous episode of the series is automatically rewound.