Method For Searching For Relevant Multimedia Content

Abstract

A method and system are provided for tagging, indexing, searching, retrieving, manipulating, and editing video images on a wide area network such as the Internet. A first set of methods is provided for enabling users to add bookmarks to multimedia files, such as movies, and audio files, such as music. The multimedia bookmark facilitates the searching of portions or segments of multimedia files, particularly when used in conjunction with a search engine. Additional methods are provided that reformat a video image for use on a variety of devices that have a wide range of resolutions by selecting some material (in the case of smaller resolutions) or more material (in the case of larger resolutions) from the same multimedia file. Still more methods are provided for interrogating images that contain textual information (in graphical form) so that the text may be copied to a tag or bookmark that can itself be indexed and searched to facilitate later retrieval via a search engine.

1 - 45 . (canceled)  
     
     
         46 - 57 . (canceled)  
     
     
         58 . A method for searching for relevant multimedia content based on at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark, The method comprising: 
 transmitting at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark from a client system to a server system in response to user selection of the multimedia bookmark;    generating a query for each feature saved in the multimedia bookmark and received by the server system;    searching one or more storage devices using each query generated; and    presenting, to the user, search results produced from at least one storage device search.    
     
     
         59 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising: 
 transmitting image data saved in the multimedia bookmark; and    using the image data as a query frame for a frame based search of the storage devices.    
     
     
         60 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising: 
 transmitting positional information saved in the multimedia bookmark; and    using the positional information as a query frame for a frame based search of the storage devices.    
     
     
         61 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising: 
 transmitting annotated text saved in the multimedia bookmark; and    using the annotated text as keywords for a text based search of the storage devices.    
     
     
         62 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising: 
 determining whether one or more of the search results contains annotated text;    using the annotated text as keywords in a text based search for relevant multimedia content; and    presenting, to the user, search results from the text based search.    
     
     
         63 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising the at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark including image data and annotated text.  
     
     
         64 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising the at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark including image data and positional information.  
     
     
         65 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising the at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark including positional information and annotated text.  
     
     
         66 . The method of  claim 58  further comprising the at least one feature saved in a multimedia bookmark including image data, annotated text and positional data.  
     
     
         67 - 79 . (canceled)  
     
     
         80 . A method of searching for multimedia content in a peer to peer environment, the method comprising: 
 broadcasting a message from a user system to announce entrance to the peer to peer environment;    acknowledging receipt of the broadcast message by one or more active nodes in the peer to peer environment;    tracking the active nodes by the user system;    broadcasting a query message including multimedia features to the peer to peer environment upon initiation of a search request by the user system;    executing a multimedia search engine on a multimedia database included in a storage device on one or more active nodes upon receipt of the query message; and    responding to the query message with a search results message including a listing of found filenames and network address locations.    
     
     
         81 . The method of  claim 80  further comprising: 
 connecting the user system to the network address; and    downloading one or more files from the listing.    
     
     
         82 . The method of  claim 81  further comprising: 
 disconnecting the user system upon completion of file downloading.    
     
     
         83 . The method of  claim 80  further comprising: 
 broadcasting a query message including a string of keywords to the peer to peer environment upon initiation of a search request by the user system.