DE29603829U1 - Interactive transmission and playback of video files - Google Patents

Description

Macronet

SOCIETY FOR APPLIED NETWORKING

Title:

Interactive transmission and playback of visible, moving processes through video files that are stored on a file server, can be accessed in a computer network via the public ISDN telephone network, and can be played on a personal computer using an MPEG plug-in card.

State of the art:

Videos and films are now available to viewers via radio and cable television. In both cases, the viewer is not able to select the films they want. It is also not possible to get a selection menu to choose a specific film.

The viewer is not able to select the films available to the broadcaster as he or she wishes. The current state of the art is therefore that a broadcaster has a fixed program and the viewer is merely a passive receiver.

Providers of information, such as films and/or videos, are currently limited to private or public broadcasters. The provision of films to the public is therefore limited to video cassettes or video CDs and the purchase of expensive broadcasting time for potential providers.

Problem:

The invention specified in claim 1 is based on the problem of creating a way to show films in true color, stereo and smooth video quality to the viewer in the form of an interactive selection option.

MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Cames Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 83 Bank association: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 District Court Düsseldorf HRB 28507

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to make it available and to use a generally accessible public transport medium for this purpose.

Solution: This problem is solved with the listed features:

- Central server on which video files are stored and which can be accessed via the publicly accessible ISDN telephone network.

- Selection menu of all videos that are available and interactive opportunity for the viewer to select the video sequence themselves.

- Transfer of the file to the viewer via a computer network that only requires a standard PC equipped with an ISDN card as the receiver.

- twice the transmission speed to the viewer through channel bundling of a SO ISDN connection.

Benefits achieved:

The invention enables companies or private individuals to present their information in the form of films/videos and offer these to a large audience for viewing on their home computer or on their PC at work. General accessibility is provided by using the public ISDN network.

MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Carries Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 Bank details: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 District Court Düsseldorf HRB 28507

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The communication and interaction of the viewer is achieved through the use of a computer network and the availability of a selection menu in which all stored films are listed.

Commercial use is possible through a 0190 number for the provider of the films.

Central viewer management is possible through the use of network administration tools, such as password assignment.

The viewer can also communicate his wishes and suggestions directly to the operator of the video file server via an electronic mail option integrated in the system.

Further embodiment of the invention: An advantageous embodiment of the invention is given in claim 2.

By using transmission media with a data throughput rate of at least 1.2 Mbit/s, the viewer's waiting time, which occurs when the video file is transported from the server to the personal computer using ISDN lines, is eliminated. The use of fiber optics enables ONLINE viewing of the video files without any waiting times. The ability of the server to operate this online connection to several viewers at the same time is possible with Datex-M connections, as multipoint connections are available here.

MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Cames Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 83 Bank details: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 Düsseldorf District Court HRB 28507

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Description of one or more embodiments: One embodiment is explained with reference to Figures 1 to 6.

Show it:

Figure 1 illustrates the processing of video material using Silicon Graphics computers. The video signals are converted into MPEG-I file format by an MPEG encoder in a personal computer.

The central file server is shown in Figure 2. The video files are stored in MPEG-I standard format on the file server's hard drives. The connection to the public ISDN network is established using a Tl primary multiplexer, which is connected to the server, and a primary multiplex connection from Deutsche Telekom. The server provides 2 B channels per connection with a data throughput rate of 128 kbit/s, which means that a data throughput rate twice that of all previous ONLINE systems is achieved.

Figure 3 illustrates a viewer's access to the file server. The viewer uses a personal computer equipped with an ISDN plug-in card. The phone number of the file server is dialed. In the example, the use of a 0190 number from Deutsche Telekom is shown to illustrate commercial use.

Figure 4 shows the selection options for the viewer. The viewer can interactively look through all the offers and then make his selection by simply pressing a button.

MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Cames Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 Bank details: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 District Court Düsseldorf HRB 28507

Macranet

SOCIETY FOR APPLIED NETWORK TECHNOLOGY mbH

Figure 5 shows the transfer of the video files from the provider’s file server to the viewer’s personal computer. This process runs automatically as soon as the viewer has made his selection.

Figure 6 shows the process of viewing the videos. The connection is broken and the viewer can play the VIDEO file using the MPEG decoder card built into his personal computer. This playback can be repeated as often as desired.

An example of the use of fiber optic cables is shown in Figure

Figure 7: Access to the file server via fiber optic lines using the example of DATEX-M lines from Deutsche Telekom. This eliminates loading times and allows online viewing of VIDEO FILES.

Figure 8 : shows the equipment components for the viewer’s personal computer.

Figure 9: shows the multipoint capabilities of a file server with video files and simultaneous connection to more than one viewer PC with Datex-M ports.

MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Cames Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 83 Bank details: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 Düsseldorf District Court HRB 28507

Claims (3)

COMPANY FOR APPLIED NETWORK TECHNOLOGY mbH Protection claims 1. Interactive transmission and playback of video files, characterized in that a computer equipped with network operating system software is set up as a file server. The hard disks of the server are equipped with digitized video files in MPEG format. A remote data transmission path exists between the file server and the playback computer and this playback computer is equipped with an MPEG file playback device. 2. Interactive transmission according to claim 1, characterized in that the remote data connection is an ISDN data transmission line. 3. Interactive transmission according to claim 1, characterized in that the data transmission line is a high-speed line. MACRONET GmbH Managing Director: Olaf Cames Elisabethstr. 73 40217 Düsseldorf Telephone: 0211 / 38 61 30 FAX: 0211 / 44 48 Bank details: Stadtsparkasse Düsseidorf Bank code: 300 501 10 Account: 730 034 69 District Court Düsseldorf HRB 28507