Patent ID: 10795924

Abstract:
A system for locating, segmenting, annotating and retrieving multimedia files, provides a database of metadata relating to multimedia files, a database manager, and a database client for accessing the data contained within the database. The database client, together with the metadata database and database manager provide a variety of different functionalities, namely a deep linking functionality, a segmentation functionality, a metadata annotation functionality, a retrieval functionality, and an access functionality. The user, through database client annotates the multimedia file or segment of multimedia file with metadata which is saved in the database. When the user desires to locate a multimedia file, the metadata is searched or browsed to locate the database entry associated with the multimedia file in question. The system further provides the ability for the user to load, open and start the playing of a multimedia file from a point intermediate to its start and end point, and without the user having to experience the portion between the start point and the intermediate point, break down larger files into shorter segments or individual frames (or still images) or regions within frames (or still images) without creating additional copies of the selected segments of the multimedia files of interest, thereby avoiding copyright issues from arising.