Patent ID: 7555494

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for reproducing a moving image in a media stream, the method comprising: (i) receiving a media stream that comprises a moving image with physical objects, the physical objects including both a human being and a thing; (ii) associating metadata with the physical objects of the moving image, wherein the structure of the metadata is predefined and comprises a plurality of access units, each access unit comprising a set of at least four sequentially aligned data units, the set of data units comprising: a first data unit containing object area data that describes a spatio-temporal region of the physical objects; a second data unit specifying an effective time period to perform processing of the object area data in the first data unit, wherein the effective time period is relative to a time axis of the moving image; a third data unit specifying a processing of a display method relevant to the object area of the first data; and a fourth data unit specifying a reproduction priority of the access unit that comprises the set of data units, the fourth data unit specified when at least two physical objects simultaneously exist in one video frame of the moving image; (iii) reproducing the media stream according to: (a) the effective time period specified in the second data unit when only one physical object exists in one video frame of the moving image; and (b) a processing priority when more than one physical object exists in one video frame, wherein the processing priority is determined by ordering the second data units in descending order of the reproduction priority specified by the fourth data until the ordering reaches a previously determined number of reproduction.