Time-based graphical user interface for multimedia content

Abstract

A graphical user interface (“GUI”) for a content management system is provided, such as to present information associated with various forms of multimedia content. In some situations, the GUI includes information presented simultaneously using at least first and second time scales, such as to provide relatively detailed information for content corresponding to a shorter time scale (e.g., to display content listings with details about content that corresponds to a time period at the shorter time scale) and to provide relatively limited information for content corresponding to a longer time scale (e.g., indications of other content of potential interest corresponding to times outside the time period of the shorter time scale). In addition, in some situations the relatively limited information for content corresponding to the longer time scale may be selectable by the user to provide various functionality related to that content.

1 . A method for a computing device to present information about multimedia content via a graphical user interface, the method comprising: 
 receiving metadata information for each of a plurality of indicated pieces of multimedia content that are each associated with at least one time-related characteristic;    determining a plurality of the indicated pieces of multimedia content that have associated time-related characteristics that correspond to a selected period of time, and identifying one or more other of the indicated pieces of multimedia content that have associated time-related characteristics that do not correspond to the selected period of time; and    displaying to a user of the computing device a graphical user interface having information about pieces of multimedia content available for presentation, the displayed graphical user interface including at least some of the received metadata information for each of the determined plurality of pieces of multimedia content, the displayed graphical user interface further including a first timebar that includes indications of times outside the selected period of time and that includes a graphical indicator for each of at least one of the identified one or more other pieces of multimedia content, each graphical indicator for an identified piece of multimedia content being displayed on the first timebar at an indicated time that corresponds to the associated time-related characteristic of the identified piece of multimedia content, so that metadata information is displayed for pieces of multimedia content that have time-related characteristics corresponding to the selected period of time and so that indications are displayed for at least some pieces of multimedia content that have time-related characteristics outside the selected period of time.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the pieces of multimedia content include any one or combination of music, photograph, image, video, advertisement, news clip, presentation, article, videogame, and Internet content, wherein the associated time-related characteristic of the pieces of multimedia content is one of a record date and time-of-day, a release date and time-of-day, a broadcast date and time-of-day, a receipt date and time-of-day, a creation date and time-of-day, a revision date and time-of-day, and a download date and time-of-day, wherein the pieces of multimedia content include pieces of multimedia content from a plurality of multimedia content sources, and wherein the received metadata information includes information for each of the pieces of multimedia content that includes a title and genre and one or more people associated with the pieces of multimedia content.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising receiving one or more indications from the user of one or more criteria that can be related to at least one piece of multimedia content of interest, and wherein the identifying of the one or more other pieces of multimedia content is performed such that the identified one or more pieces of multimedia content each satisfy the indicated criteria, so that the graphical indicators displayed in the first timebar reflect pieces of multimedia content that satisfy the indicated criteria.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3  wherein the indicated criteria include one or more of a specified title value, a specified date value, a specified associated person value, a specified text value, a specified relationship value, a specified alphabetical value, a specified rating value, or a specified categorization value, including a value that pertains to at least one of a genre, a device used to create the content, a person who created the content, a source from which the content was acquired, a subject matter of the content, a file size, a color, a number of pixels, a frame rate, a measure of resolution, a display size of the content, and a use restriction on the content, and wherein the identifying of the one or more other pieces of multimedia content includes determining that the received metadata for the identified one or more pieces of multimedia content includes the specified values.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising: 
 modifying the graphical user interface in a manner that the first timebar has indications that are different than the indications of time and that represent at least one of the indicated criteria; and    displaying a second timebar simultaneously with the first timebar, the second timebar including indications that are subsets of the indications of the first timebar that represent the at least one of the indicated criteria, the second timebar further having a region associated therewith that is capable to present metadata information for pieces of multimedia content that correspond to the indications of the second timebar and that have been organized and manipulated by the user based on at least one of the indicated criteria.    
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein displaying the second timebar with the region associated therewith that is capable to present metadata information for pieces of multimedia content that have been organized and manipulated by the user based on at least one of the indicated criteria includes presenting the metadata information in the region according to a hierarchical relationship between the metadata information.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising displaying an appearance, of the metadata information for pieces of multimedia content that have time-related characteristics corresponding to the selected period of time or of the at least some pieces of multimedia content that have time-related characteristics outside the selected period of time, in a similar manner for similar multimedia content types and in a different manner for different multimedia content types.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing status information pertaining to at least one of the pieces of multimedia content.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8  wherein providing the status information includes providing status information associated with a plurality of devices that respectively control presentation of the pieces of multimedia content, at least some of the plurality of devices being associated with different multiple first timebars on the graphical user interface, each first timebar further being associated with a second timebar that can be displayed simultaneously with their associated first timebar, the second time bar having indications that are subsets of the indications of their associated first timebar.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the graphical indicators included in the first timebar are displayed in such a manner as to have differing appearances, the appearance of each graphical indicator for an identified piece of multimedia content being specified so as to indicate a status of the identified piece of multimedia content relative to one or more statuses of other identified pieces of multimedia content.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 1  wherein at least some of the indications in the first timebar of the times outside the selected period of time are each user-selectable, the method further comprising: 
 receiving an indication of a selection by the user of one of the user-selectable indications of time in the first timebar;    selecting a new period of time based on the selected time indication; and    updating the displayed graphical user interface to include at least some of the received metadata information for each piece of multimedia content whose associated time-related characteristic corresponds to the selected new period of time.    
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the indicated times for the first timebar represent a first time period and wherein the selected time period is a second distinct time period that is selected as a subset of the first time period, wherein the displayed graphical user interface further includes a second timebar that is displayed simultaneously with the first timebar and that indicates a plurality of segments of time within the second time period, wherein the displayed graphical user interface further includes a region associated with the second timebar that includes indications of a plurality of multimedia content sources, wherein the determined plurality of pieces of multimedia content include pieces of multimedia content from the plurality of multimedia content sources whose associated time-related characteristics correspond to one of the plurality of segments of time, and wherein the at least some metadata information about the determined plurality of pieces of multimedia content that is included in the displayed graphical user interface is displayed in a grid format within the region associated with the second timebar and includes detail information for each of the determined plurality of pieces of multimedia content.  
   
   
       13 . A computer-readable medium whose contents enable a computing device to present information about multimedia content via a user interface, by performing a method comprising: 
 receiving information related to a plurality of pieces of multimedia content that are each associated with at least one organizational characteristic having a plurality of values; and    presenting a user interface to provide information regarding the pieces of multimedia content, by: 
 rendering a first bar on the user interface that corresponds to a first group of the values of the organizational characteristic;  
 rendering a region on the user interface that corresponds to a second group of the values of the organizational characteristic that is a subset of the first group;  
 populating the region with the received information for pieces of multimedia content that have associated organizational characteristic values corresponding to the second group; and  
 adding one or more indicators to the rendered first bar that correspond to pieces of multimedia content that have associated organizational characteristic values corresponding to values in the first group that are not in the second group.  
   
   
   
       14 . The computer-readable medium of  claim 13  wherein the organizational characteristic is one of time, one or more predefined types of relationships between pieces of content, and one or more categorization types.  
   
   
       15 . The computer-readable medium of  claim 13  wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the computing device and/or is a data transmission medium transmitting to the computing device a generated data signal containing the contents.  
   
   
       16 . The computer-readable medium of  claim 13  wherein the contents are instructions that when executed cause the computing device to perform the method.  
   
   
       17 . A computing system configured to present information about multimedia content, comprising: 
 a display; and    a content management system configured to present on the display a graphical user interface having information about pieces of multimedia content, the presented graphical user interface including a first timebar that corresponds to a first time period and including detail information for each of a plurality of pieces of multimedia content associated with a second time period, the first timebar including one or more graphical indicators corresponding to one or more pieces of multimedia content that are each associated with a portion of the first time period that is outside of the second time period.    
   
   
       18 . The computing system of  claim 17 , further comprising a device to control presentation of pieces of multimedia content on one or more presentation devices, and wherein the presented graphical user interface further includes user-selectable controls to allow a user to control the presentation of certain pieces of multimedia content on the one or more presentation devices via instructions sent to the device.  
   
   
       19 . The computing system of  claim 17  wherein the content management system includes software executing in memory of the computing system.  
   
   
       20 . The computing system of  claim 17  wherein the content management system consists of a means for presenting on the display a graphical user interface having information about pieces of multimedia content, the presented graphical user interface including a first timebar that corresponds to a first time period and including detail information for each of a plurality of pieces of multimedia content associated with a second time period, the first timebar including one or more graphical indicators corresponding to one or more pieces of multimedia content that are each associated with a portion of the first time period that is outside of the second time period.