Multimedia Content Shortening via Dynamic Progress Bar Curves
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods do not provide consistent and convenient ways for users to shorten multimedia content or generate summaries for shortened parts, especially when viewing repetitive content like online education videos, where users want to de-emphasize familiar sections.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that allow users to shorten multimedia content by modifying a progress bar, representing the shortened portion as a curve adjacent to the progress bar, with content manager software enabling users to collapse and expand segments using gestures, and automatically summarize or skip over de-emphasized parts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If users want to review detailed content, then they need to view the entire multimedia content, but this increases the time required to browse and review content
Solution Approach 1:
The progress bar is divided into multiple segments corresponding to different portions of the multimedia content. Each segment can be independently manipulated by the user through pinching gestures, allowing selective shortening or expanding of specific content portions while maintaining the overall structure. This segmentation enables users to quickly skip through familiar sections while preserving access to detailed content when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a visual dimension to the progress bar by displaying curves above it that represent the original length of content portions. These curves provide a visual indicator of the compressed content, allowing users to see both the shortened progress bar length and the original content length simultaneously. This dimensional addition helps users understand what content has been shortened without losing information about the original content structure.
2Ease of operation
If the progress bar shows the complete original length of all content portions, then all content information is visible, but the interface becomes cluttered and harder to navigate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the visual representation of original content length from the main progress bar and places it in the form of curves positioned above the progress bar. This extraction separates the navigation function (progress bar) from the information display function (curves showing original length), allowing the progress bar to remain clean and easy to navigate while still providing access to complete content length information through the curves.
Solution Approach 2:
By positioning the curve representations in a vertical dimension above the horizontal progress bar, the patent creates a multi-layered display. The progress bar remains in the primary horizontal dimension for easy scanning and interaction, while the curve information is placed in a secondary vertical dimension, providing additional information without cluttering the primary navigation interface.
3Ease of operation
If users manually adjust each content portion individually, then precise control is achieved, but the complexity of operation increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple content portions into contiguous segments on the progress bar that can be manipulated as single units. When users pinch together endpoints of adjacent content portions, these portions are combined into a single shortened segment represented by one curve. This merging reduces the number of individual adjustments needed and simplifies the user interface while maintaining precise control over content compression.
Solution Approach 2:
The progress bar and its curves are designed to be dynamically adjustable. Users can pinch to shorten content portions, and the system responds by dynamically recalculating and redrawing the curves to reflect the new compressed state. This dynamic behavior allows the interface to adapt to user actions in real-time, providing intuitive control without requiring complex manual adjustments for each portion.
Data Source
AI summary
A method to display a representation of multimedia content that includes a progress bar. The method includes shortening a portion of the multimedia content having a start time and an end time from an original length to a shortened length based on a received indication and modifying the progress bar to represent the shortened portion of the multimedia content. The original length of the portion is represented by a curve adjacent to the progress bar, where a first end of the curve is adjacent to the progress bar at a location indicating the start time, and where a second end of the curve is adjacent to the progress bar at a location indicating the end time, and the shortened length of the portion is represented by a distance on the progress bar between the location indicating the start time and the location indicating the end time.