Patent ID: 8286069

Claim:
A system for editing a multimedia production comprising: a server connected to a network; a client communications device connected to the network, wherein the client communications device is in communication with the server; media storage connected to the server, the media storage including media elements that are used in a multimedia production; production storage connected to the server, the production storage including a set of production data that defines a multimedia production that includes a plurality of media channels for simultaneous presentation, each media channel including an ordered set of media elements, the set of production data including, for each of a plurality of the media channels, a linked list of presentation data items, each presentation data item indicative of one or more media elements in the media channel and presentation parameters for presenting the one or more media elements in the multimedia presentation, wherein the server is configured to: identify each of a plurality of the media elements as either a temporal media element, when a duration of presentation of the media element within the multimedia presentation is determinant from the presentation parameters for that media element, or a non-temporal media element, when a duration of presentation of the media element within the multimedia presentation is not determinant from the presentation parameters for that media element; wherein the presentation parameters for at least one non-temporal media element includes criteria for determining the duration of presentation of that media element within the multimedia presentation; and wherein the presentation parameters for at least one media element includes a time for beginning the presentation of that media element that is determined by the duration of presentation determined for a non-temporal media element from the criteria included in the presentation parameters for that non-temporal media element; wherein the server is further configured to: receive a multimedia production editing command from the client communications device; and determine whether the multimedia production editing command makes the criteria for any non-temporal media element indeterminant and when the multimedia production editing commamd makes the criteria for any non-temporal media element indeterminant, send a communication to the client communications device that replacement criteria for criteria made indeterminant must be supplied for the production editing command to be executed.