Global Timeline Seeking in Rich Media Streams
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current solutions for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Dynamic and Interactive Multimedia Scenes (DIMS) do not enable seeking in the global timeline of a rich media stream, leading to issues like mismatched document and media times, inability to seek over document borders, and lack of synchronization based on global time.
Innovation Solution
A method for seeking in a rich media stream using a global timeline, where seeking instructions with offset time values are inserted into the media stream, allowing synchronization across multiple document timelines, and a new attribute (syncMasterGlobal) is introduced to choose between global and internal document timelines as synchronization masters.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If seeking is performed using local document timelines in DIMS streams, then seeking within a single document is enabled, but seeking over document borders is not possible and document time mismatches with media time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a global timeline that serves as a universal time reference for the entire DIMS stream, allowing seeking operations to function across multiple documents. The global timeline integrates transport level timestamps with document timelines, enabling the seeking mechanism to operate universally across document boundaries while maintaining local document time synchronization.
2Stability of the object's composition
If separate local timelines are used for each SVG document in a DIMS stream, then document independence is maintained, but synchronization with global media time becomes complex and requires additional modules
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a global timeline as an intermediary layer between the transport stream and individual document timelines. This global timeline acts as a mediator that translates transport level timestamps into document-specific time references, enabling automatic synchronization without requiring complex external synchronization modules or manual time adjustments.
3Adaptability or versatility
If document time is reset to zero for each new SVG document, then local timeline independence is achieved, but global time continuity is broken and seeking across documents fails
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a nested time reference system where document timelines are nested within the global timeline. Each document maintains its local time reference (resetting to zero), but this local time is mapped to the continuous global timeline through offset calculations based on transport timestamps. This nested structure preserves document modularity while maintaining global time continuity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of seeking in a rich media stream provided from a multimedia server to at least one multimedia client, wherein the method may be executed in an encoder of a multimedia server or a decoder or a multimedia client. A seeking instruction is inserted into the media stream at time instance X, comprising an offset time instance Y, in order to be used for seeking at a global time rate. A method for enabling synchronization in a rich media stream wherein the synchronization is based on a global timeline is also provided.