Abstract:
A method of reproducing a plurality of scenes can support scene-based seeking while reproducing content in a distributed multimedia system. The method includes: receiving, information about the plurality of scenes from a media server; transmitting, the information about the plurality of scenes to a media renderer and controlling the media renderer to display the plurality of scenes; and selecting, in the UPnP control point, one of the plurality of scenes.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/021,154, filed on Jan. 15, 2008, in the USPTO, and Korean Patent Application No. 10-2008-0081366, filed on Aug. 20, 2008, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     1. Field 
     One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to universal plug and play (UPnP), and more particularly, to a method of supporting scene-based seeking while reproducing content in a distributed multimedia system such as a UPnP audio/video (AV) multimedia system. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     Universal plug and play (UPnP) is a set of computer network protocols to allow individual devices or home appliances, such as a personal computer (PC) and a printer, to connect and communicate with one another in a home environment. In general, UPnP uses, but is not limited to, Internet protocols, such as a transfer control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) and a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), in order to seamlessly connect networked devices having unique Internet protocol (IP) addresses, and an extensible markup language (XML) in order to describe the networked devices. 
     Plug and play (PnP) is a technology for attaching peripheral devices to a PC, whereas UPnP is derived from PnP and can be used even in a home network. 
     A scene refers to chapters in a digital versatile disk (DVD) system. 
     UPnP audio/video (AV) does not provide any mechanism that shows scenes of video content. 
     SUMMARY 
     One or more embodiments include a method of supporting scene-based seeking while reproducing content in a distributed multimedia system such as a universal plug and play (UPnP) audio/video (AV) multimedia system. 
     One or more embodiments include a computer-readable recording medium having embodied thereon a computer program for executing the method. 
     Additional aspects and/or advantages will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. 
     To achieve the above and/or other aspects and advantages, one or more embodiments may include a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, the method including: receiving, information about the plurality of scenes from a media server; transmitting, (in the UPnP control point), the information about the plurality of scenes to a media renderer and controlling the media renderer to display the plurality of scenes; and selecting, (in the UPnP control point), one of the plurality of scenes. 
     The transmitting of the information about the plurality of scenes to the media renderer and the controlling of the media renderer to display the plurality of scenes may include: transmitting a query for information about the number and positions of supported rendering surfaces to the media renderer and acquiring the information; binding, a rendering surface to a rendering instance with respect to each scene to be displayed; and transmitting, in the UPnP control point, the rendering instance corresponding to the scene to be displayed to the media render. 
     The selecting of the one of the plurality of scenes may include: receiving information about a scene to be selected by a user; and moving a focus of a current rendering surface so as to select a rendering surface corresponding to the scene to be selected by the user. 
     The information about the plurality of scenes may be scene metadata, wherein the transmitting of the information about the plurality of scenes to the media renderer and the controlling of the media renderer to display the plurality of scenes in the UPnP control point include: transmitting the scene metadata to the media renderer; and calling an action so as for the media renderer to display all selectable scenes. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       These and/or other aspects and advantages will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which: 
         FIG. 1  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to an embodiment; 
         FIG. 2  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to another embodiment; and 
         FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to another embodiment. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS 
     Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. In this regard, the present invention may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Accordingly, embodiments are merely described below, by referring to the figures, to explain aspects. 
       FIG. 1  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to an embodiment. 
     Referring to  FIG. 1 , in operation S 100 , a universal plug and play (UPnP) control point receives information about a plurality of scenes from a media server. 
     In operation S 110 , the UPnP control point transmits the received information about the plurality of scenes to a media renderer, and controls the media renderer to display the plurality of scenes. 
     In operation S 120 , the UPnP control point selects one of the plurality of scenes. 
       FIG. 2  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to another embodiment of the present invention. 
     In  FIG. 2 , a picture-in-picture UPnP application program interface (API) is used to provide a function of scene-based seeking. 
     In operation S 210 , a control point  10  calls a Browse( ) action to browse the native hierarchy of the content directory objects exposed by the content directory service of a media server  30 . 
     In operation S 220 , the control point  10  calls a SetAVTransportURI( ) action to give a media renderer  30  the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) information of a content resource. 
     In operation S 230 , the control point  10  calls a Play( ) action to play the content. 
     In operation S 240 , the content from the beginning is transferred from media server to media renderer by using out of band protocol such as RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), etc. 
     In operation S 250 , the control point  10  calls a GetRenderingSurfaceInfo( ) action to determine the number and positions of rendering surfaces (another term for this is rendering windows) that can be supported. 
     In operation S 260 , the control point  10  calls a PrepareForConnection( ) action to bind a rendering surface to a rendering instance. The PrepareForConnection( ) action returns a rendering control service identification (RCSID) that is newly created( 41 ) and is used to separate the rendering instance from others. 
     In operation S 270 , a user may select a rendering surface for displaying a scene image of the control point  10 . At this time, the rendering surface is associated with the RCSID( 42 ) that is created in operation S 260 . The rendering surface is now controlled by the RCSID. 
     In operations S 280  and S 290 , the control point  10  calls a SetAVTransportURI( ) action to prepare the scene image rendering( 44 ) and a Play( ) action to display the scene image( 46 ). 
     In operation  48 , the control point  10  repeats operations S 260  through S 280  depending on the number of scenes so that the media renderer  30  shows each of the scenes. 
     Now, the user can select a scene. In operation S 300 , a specific scene is transferred from the media server  20  to the media renderer  30  by using out of band protocol. 
     In operation S 310 , in order to select the scene( 50 ), the control point  10  calls a GetFocusedRenderingSurface( ) action that returns information about the scene. Also, the GetFocusedRenderingSurface( ) action could receive an input argument to move a focus of the rendering surface to another surface, for example, UP, DOWN, RIGHT, or LEFT. 
     In operation S 320 , the control point  10  calls a Seek( ) action with the time position information of the selected scene. 
     In operation S 330 , content from the selected scene is transferred from the media server  20  to the media renderer  30  by using out of band protocol. 
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating a method of reproducing a plurality of scenes, according to another embodiment. 
     In  FIG. 3 , new UPnP APIs for scene-based seeking are illustrated. 
     In operation S 410 , the control point  10  calls a Browse( ) action to browse the native hierarchy of the content directory objects exposed by the content directory service of the media server  30 . 
     In operation S 420 , the control point  10  calls a SetAVTransportURI( ) action and passes scene metadata as an input argument to the media renderer  30 . 
     In operation S 430 , the control point  10  calls a Play( ) action to play the content. 
     In operation S 435 , streaming the content is started with out of band protocols such as HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and etc. 
     In operation S 440 , while the user is watching video content, the control point  10  calls a ShowScene( ) action to see what scenes are selectable in the video content( 60 ). At this time, the user can see a number of scenes on a displayer of the media renderer  30  with out of band protocols such as HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and etc. In operation S 445 . 
     In operation S 450 , the control point  10  invokes a SetFocusOfScene( ) action to select the scene that is rendered from now( 70 ) and acquire information about a scene. An input argument of the SetFocusOfScene( ) action may be a direction, for example, UP, DOWN, RIGHT, or LEFT, to move between the scenes. An output argument of the SetFocusOfScene( ) action could also be a uniform resource identifier (URI) of an image of the selected scene, by which the control point  10  can know the time position of the selected scene in a video stream. 
     In operation S 460 , the control point  10  calls a Seek( ) action along with information about the time position of the selected scene. 
     In operation S 465 , content from the selected scene is transferred from the media server  20  to the media renderer  30  by using out of band protocol. 
     The present invention may be embodied as computer-readable codes on a computer-readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium is any data storage device that can store data which can thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples of the computer-readable recording medium include read-only memories (ROMs), random-access memories (RAMs), CD-ROMs, magnetic tapes, floppy disks, and optical data storage devices. 
     While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof using specific terms, the embodiments and terms have been used to explain the present invention and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention defined by the claims. The preferred embodiments should be considered in a descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. Therefore, the scope of the invention is defined not by the detailed description of the invention but by the appended claims, and all differences within the scope will be construed as being included in the present invention. 
     Although a few embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.