System for managing transitions between media content items

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10599388-B2
Application number	US-201816136789-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 20, 2018
Priority date	May 19, 2015
Publication date	Mar 24, 2020
Grant date	Mar 24, 2020

Abstract

A system for playing media content items operates to provide smooth transitions between the media content items to continuously support a user's repetitive motion activity. The system can generate crossfade data containing information for transitions between media content items. The mix-in and mix-out points for the transitions are calculated to eliminate one or more portions of media content items that have lower musical energy than a majority portion of the items, and to maintain substantially consistent and/or stable musical energy (e.g., audio power or sound power) throughout the media content items including transitions therebetween.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of continuously playing back a plurality of media content items, the method comprising:
determining, using at least one computing device, a mix-out point of a first media content item, comprising:
dividing the first media content item into a plurality of sections;
determining an ending section of the plurality of sections;
dividing the ending section into a plurality of segments;
determining a value of a musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the ending section;
identifying, from the plurality of segments of the ending section, a segment of the ending section having the musical attribute with a highest value; and
defining a beginning of the identified segment of the ending section as the mix-out point of the first media content item;

playing back the first media content item on a media playback device;
determining an alignment of the mix-out point of the first media content item with a mix-in point of a second media content item; and
playing back the second media content item on the media playback device based on the determined alignment.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one computing device includes the media playback device.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining, using the at least one computing device, the mix-in point of the second media content item, comprising:
dividing the second media content item into a plurality of sections;
determining a beginning section of the plurality of sections;
dividing the beginning section into a plurality of segments;
determining a value of a musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the beginning section;
identifying, from the plurality of segments of the beginning section, a segment of the beginning section having the musical attribute with a highest value; and
defining a beginning of the identified segment of the beginning section as the mix-in point of the second media content item.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the value of the musical attribute determined for each of the plurality of segments of the ending section of the first media content item and each of the plurality of segments of the beginning section of the second media content item is calculated based on variations in the musical attribute over the respective segment of the ending section and the beginning section, respectively.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the musical attribute includes tempo.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the musical attribute includes sound power.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the musical attribute is selected from a group consisting of pitch, dynamics, rhythm, articulation, timbre, and order.

8. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
determining an adjustment of the alignment of the mix-out point of the first media content item with the mix-in point of the second media content item to match at least one beat within the identified segment of the ending section of the first media content item with at least one beat within the identified segment of the beginning section of the second media content item.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
adjusting at least one of a value of the musical attribute of the identified segment of the ending section of the first media content item and a value of the musical attribute of the identified segment of the beginning section of the second media content item to equalize the values when transitioning between the first media content item and the second media content item.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first media content item and the second media content item are played back to match a downbeat around the mix-out point of the first media content item with a downbeat around the mix-in point of the second media content item.

11. A method of continuously playing back a plurality of media content items, the method comprising:
playing back a first media content item on a media playback device;
determining, using at least one computing device, a mix-in point of a second media content item, comprising:
dividing the second media content item into a plurality of sections;
determining a beginning section of the plurality of sections;
dividing the beginning section into a plurality of segments;
determining a value of a musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the beginning section;
identifying, from the plurality of segments of the beginning section, a segment of the beginning section having the musical attribute with a highest value; and
defining a beginning of the identified segment of the beginning section as the mix-in point of the second media content item;

determining an alignment of a mix-out point of the first media content item with the mix-in point of the second media content item; and
playing back the second media content item on the media playback device based on the determined alignment.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the at least one computing device includes the media playback device.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the value of the musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the beginning section is calculated based on variations in the musical attribute over the respective segment of the beginning section.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the musical attribute includes tempo.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the musical attribute includes sound power.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
determining an adjustment of the alignment of the mix-out point of the first media content item with the mix-in point of the second media content item to match at least one beat within a segment of an ending section of the first media content item identified as having a musical attribute with a highest value with at least one beat within the identified segment of the beginning section of the second media content item.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
adjusting at least one of a value of the musical attribute of the identified segment of the ending section of the first media content item and a value of the musical attribute of the identified segment of the beginning section of the second media content item to equalize the values when transitioning between the first media content item and the second media content item.

18. A method of providing a continuous transition during playback of a plurality of media content items, the method comprising:
determining, using at least one computing device, a mix-out point of a first media content item, comprising:
dividing the first media content item into a plurality of sections;
determining an ending section of the plurality of sections;
dividing the ending section into a plurality of segments;
determining a value of a musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the ending section of the first media content item;
identifying, from the plurality of segments of the ending section, a segment of the ending section having the musical attribute with a highest value; and
defining a beginning of the identified segment of the ending section as the mix-out point of the first media content item;

determining, using the at least one computing device, a mix-in point of a second media content item, comprising:
dividing the second media content item into a plurality of sections;
determining a beginning section of the plurality of sections;
dividing the beginning section into a plurality of segments;
determining a value of a musical attribute for each of the plurality of segments of the be

Assignees

• Spotify Ab

Inventors

• Jehan Tristan
• Garmark Sten
• Montecchio Nicola

Classifications

• G06F16/636

  by using biological or physiological data · CPC title

• G06F3/165 Primary

  Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path · CPC title

• H04W4/80 Primary

  Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication · CPC title

• G06F16/683

  using metadata automatically derived from the content · CPC title

• G11B27/038

  Cross-faders therefor · CPC title