Hierarchical Timeline Segmentation for Media Editing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current media-editing applications lack a useful way to incorporate the structure of a story into the user interface and editing process, making it tedious to change scene order in a media presentation.
Innovation Solution
A hierarchically structured timeline that allows users to segment media content into user-determined segments, with multiple levels of hierarchy, enabling users to modify segment durations and move segments independently, providing a clear visual representation of the story structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If editors create each scene as a separate sequence and copy-paste into a master sequence, then the editing process can accommodate multiple scenes, but the process becomes very tedious when scene order needs to be changed
Solution Approach 1:
The timeline is divided into scene-level segments that can be independently manipulated. Each scene is represented as a distinct unit in the hierarchical structure, allowing editors to work with scenes as atomic elements rather than individual clips, thereby simplifying reordering operations.
Solution Approach 2:
A hierarchical timeline structure is implemented where scenes are nested within sequences, and sequences are nested within the master timeline. This nested organization allows editors to manipulate entire scenes (including all their clips) as single units while maintaining the ability to access and edit individual clips within each scene when needed.
2Device complexity
If current media-editing applications use a flat timeline structure, then the interface is simple, but there is no useful way to incorporate story structure into the user interface or editing process
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a hierarchical dimension to the traditional flat timeline by creating multiple levels of organization (clips within scenes, scenes within sequences, sequences within master timeline). This additional dimensional layer enables story structure integration while maintaining a manageable interface through hierarchical navigation and collapsed/expanded views.
Solution Approach 2:
The hierarchical timeline structure serves multiple functions simultaneously: it organizes clips chronologically, groups them into story scenes, sequences scenes into acts, and enables both detailed clip-level editing and high-level scene-level reordering within a single unified interface.
3Ease of operation
If editors manually rearrange individual clips to change scene order, then precise control is achieved, but the process becomes extremely time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the timeline into scene-level units, the patent enables editors to move entire scenes as single operations rather than manually relocating numerous individual clips. This segmentation dramatically reduces the time required for scene reordering while maintaining precise control over scene placement.
Solution Approach 2:
The hierarchical structure allows scenes to be copied as complete units including all their associated clips and internal structure. Editors can replicate entire scenes with a single copy operation rather than manually recreating or relocating individual clips, significantly accelerating the editing process.
Data Source
AI summary
Some embodiments provide a computer readable medium storing a media editing application for creating multimedia presentations. The application includes a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI includes a composite display area for displaying a portion of a timeline to which multimedia clips are assigned to create a composite media presentation. The timeline is divided into user-defined segments. The GUI includes an outline window for displaying a list of selectable items representing the user-defined segments, the selectable items for use in applying various operations to the user-modifiable segments. In some embodiments, the various operations include operations to insert a new segment into the timeline, to merge at least two segments into one segment, to hide a particular segment from view, to focus on a particular segment or group of segments in the composite display area, as well as other operations.