Multimedia User Interface with Playable Thumbnail Pre-Play
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current multimedia content retrieval systems are inefficient, requiring users to manually search through numerous folders and subfolders, making it difficult to find desired content, especially with increasing storage capacities and content quantities, as they rely solely on title-based searches and require playback to obtain detailed information.
Innovation Solution
A user interface and control method that displays multimedia content using a sorting system with playable thumbnails, allowing users to easily recognize and retrieve information by selecting and pre-playing content, with features like indicator bars and resume functionality, enabling quicker access and navigation through multimedia content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If multimedia contents are arranged in a list form within folders and subfolders, then the storage capacity and content quantity can be increased, but the retrieval time and operational complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the traditional one-dimensional list view into a two-dimensional thumbnail grid view. Each thumbnail displays visual content information alongside metadata, allowing users to scan multiple items simultaneously rather than sequentially through text lists. This dimensional change enables parallel information processing and significantly reduces retrieval time for large content collections.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a pre-play function that automatically plays a preview of the selected multimedia content before the user commits to opening it. This preliminary action allows users to verify content relevance without fully loading or opening the file, reducing unnecessary access operations and speeding up the retrieval process by filtering out unwanted content early.
2Quantity of substance
If multimedia contents are arranged in a list form within folders and subfolders, then the storage capacity and content quantity can be increased, but the operational complexity and number of search operations increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the traditional one-dimensional list view into a two-dimensional thumbnail grid view. Each thumbnail displays visual content information alongside metadata, allowing users to scan multiple items simultaneously rather than sequentially through text lists. This dimensional change enables parallel information processing and significantly reduces retrieval time for large content collections.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces thumbnail images as an intermediary between the folder structure and the actual multimedia content. These thumbnails provide visual cues and preview information that help users quickly identify desired content without navigating through multiple folder levels or examining detailed metadata, thereby simplifying the search operation.
3Device complexity
If title-based search is used to retrieve multimedia contents, then the system structure can be kept simple, but the information accuracy and content verification capability deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enhances individual thumbnail entries with multiple information layers including visual previews, titles, metadata tags, and contextual information. Each thumbnail provides localized detailed information about the specific content it represents, enabling accurate content identification without requiring complex global search systems. Users can verify content relevance at the thumbnail level before selection.
Data Source
AI summary
A user interface for displaying and playing multimedia contents is capable of allowing the user to easily recognize information about multimedia contents at a glance, and allowing the user to more easily retrieve desired information, through an image pre-play function. An apparatus includes the user interface, and a control method for the apparatus are includes displaying a sorting item of a multimedia content, and arranging file information included in the sorting item and having the form of a playable image.