Patent ID: 8856118

Claim:
A method of playing a rich content stream comprising a media stream and a descriptive stream, the method comprising: receiving, at a media encoder, media content from a media content source; generating, at the media encoder, the media stream from the content, the media stream comprising a single file including the media content; obtaining descriptive content from an Internet web site; selectively routing the descriptive content through a content filter to control the types of content received from the Internet web site wherein a remote control device is used to engage the content filter and the remote control is used to set parameters for the content to be passed or blocked by the content filter; generating the descriptive stream from the descriptive content; transmitting the rich content stream, comprising the media stream and the descriptive stream as separate streams, over a network, allowing the media stream to be played, and the descriptive stream to be ignored, by media players incapable of playing the descriptive stream; receiving the rich content stream at a media player; synchronizing the media stream and the descriptive stream at the media player so that information in the descriptive stream is temporally synchronized with media content playing from the media stream; simultaneously displaying; on the media player, the media stream and, upon placement of a cursor over a selected location on the media player viewing screen, descriptive content comprising one or more descriptive links, wherein the descriptive content displayed on the media player viewing screen is made not visible by moving the cursor from the selected location; on a descriptive data player that is physically separate from the media player a portion of the media stream playing on the media player along with a first portion of the descriptive stream temporally synchronized with the portion of the media stream playing on the media player; providing, in the descriptive stream, a display of scene selections, each of the scene selections corresponding to a different scene portion of the same media stream, each scene selection further having a searchable descriptive file, wherein with each descriptive file searched in response to a search query, a thumbnail shot of the scene selection corresponding to the descriptive file that satisfies the search query is presented and selectable for playing at the scene portion of the media stream; in response to a user selection of a scene selection in the descriptive stream, playing a scene portion of the media stream corresponding to the selected scene selection; and selectively storing a portion of the descriptive content to a home media storage device by activating a storage command on the remote control while the temporally synchronized media stream and descriptive stream are currently playing on the media player and descriptive data player respectively, wherein activation of the storage command does not cause storage of any portion of the media stream.