Playback adjustments for digital media items

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9451230-B1
Application number	US-201314083328-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Nov 18, 2013
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Sep 20, 2016
Grant date	Sep 20, 2016

Abstract

An adjustment module analyzes user adjustments in a playback attribute (e.g., volume) of a media item (e.g., a video) that occur when the user transitions from one media item to another. By analyzing these adjustments, the adjustment module determines an adjustment amount to apply to the playback attribute of a media item to cause the media item to appear equivalent to users with respect to the playback attribute when compared with the media item that was previously played.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
identifying transitions in playing videos, a transition from a first video to a second video representing playing the second video directly following playing the first video;
for each identified transition:
determining a first level of volume at which the first video of the transition was played;
determining a second level of volume at which the second video of the transition was played; and
determining an amount of user volume adjustment a user has applied based on the first level of volume and the second level of volume;

identifying a set of videos involved in at least one of the identified transitions;
for a subset of the videos of the set, forming a graph in which:
each vertex represents a video of the subset of videos, and
each edge between a pair of vertices represents a degree of confidence in a corresponding amount of user volume adjustment determined for an identified transition from a video corresponding to one of the vertices in the pair and another video corresponding to the other vertex in the pair;

forming a spanning tree connecting the subset of videos; and
for a given pair of videos of the subset of videos where no transition was identified between the pair:
determining, using the spanning tree, an automatic playback adjustment amount by which to adjust a volume level of one video of the pair in order to cause an effective volume level of the video when played to appear equivalent to an effective volume level of the other video when played.

2. A computer-implemented method comprising: for each media item of a plurality of media items: identifying, during playback of the media item, a first user adjustment being a first relative amount of adjustment in a playback attribute made by a first user responsive to transitioning from a directly preceding media item to the media item; and determining an a second user adjustment being a second relative amount of adjustment in the playback attribute made by a second user responsive to transitioning from the media item to the directly preceding media item; for a first media item and a second media item of the plurality of media items: identifying a third user adjustment between the first media item and the second media item; identifying a fourth user adjustment between: the first media item and a third media item, or the second media item and the third media item; determining, based on the third and fourth user adjustments, an automatic adjustment amount of the playback attribute to apply to playing the second media item that causes the second media item to appear equivalent to the first media item during playback with respect to the playback attribute; identifying a set of media items that were involved in at least one of the transitions; for a subset of the media items of the set, forming a graph including vertices and edges in which: each vertex represents one of the subset of media items, and each edge between a pair of vertices represents a degree of confidence in a corresponding amount of adjustment in the playback attribute determined for an identified transition from a media item corresponding to one of the vertices in the pair and another media item corresponding to the other vertex in the pair; forming a spanning tree connecting the subset of media items; and for a given pair of media items of the subset of media items where no transition was identified between the pair: determining, using the spanning tree, the automatic adjustment amount of the playback attribute to apply to playing one media item of the pair in order to cause an effective level of the playback attribute to appear equivalent when playing the pair of media items.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising:
receiving a request from a third user to transition from viewing the first media item to viewing the second media item;
producing an adjusted playback attribute value by applying the determined automatic adjustment amount to a value of the playback attribute when playing the first media item; and
playing the second media item such that the playback attribute has the adjusted playback attribute value.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the first user adjustment is performed by the first user in a web-based user interface for playing the media item.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the first user adjustment is performed by the first user using a global volume control provided by an operating system of a device used by the first user.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising: identifying, during playback of a fourth media item, a fifth user adjustment made by a third user in the playback attribute responsive to a transition to the fourth media item from a fifth media item directly preceding the fourth media item; determining, based on other user adjustments made by the third user, that the third user rarely adjusts the playback attribute; and responsive to determining that the third user rarely adjusts the playback attribute, refraining from using the fifth user adjustment when determining an automatic adjustment amount of the playback attribute to apply to playing of media items.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the first media item, the second media item, and the third media item have audio components, and wherein the playback attribute comprises audio volume level, further comprising:
identifying, during playback of the first media item, a fifth user adjustment made by a third user in the playback attribute responsive to transitioning from the second media item to the first media item; and
responsive to determining that the fifth user adjustment represents muting of the volume, refraining from using the fifth user adjustment when determining automatic adjustment amounts of the playback attribute to apply to playing the second media item.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising: applying a first weighting value to the third user adjustment based on attributes of the transition from the first media item to the second media item; and applying a second weighting value to the third user adjustment based on attributes of the transition from the first media item to the second media item, the first weighting value different from the second weighting value; wherein the automatic playback adjustment amount is determined based on the first weighting value and the second weighting value.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising: identifying transitions among the plurality of media items in which a fourth media item was involved; determining user adjustments associated with the identified ones of the transitions; and computing an average automatic adjustment amount of the playback attribute to apply to the fourth media item as an average of the determined automatic adjustment amounts.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , further comprising identifying groups of media items such that amounts of identified user adjustments between the media items in a given group are below a threshold amount, wherein determining the automatic adjustment amounts associated with the identified transitions comprises identifying ones of the identified groups corresponding to media items of the identified ones of the transitions.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a processor, the instructions comprising: instructions for, for each media item of a plurality of media items: identifying, during playback of the media item, a first user adjustment being a first relative amount of adjustment in a playback

Assignees

• Google Inc

Inventors

• Henderson Philip
• Saddiqi Sajid

Classifications

• H04N9/802 Primary

  involving processing of the sound signal (H04N9/806, H04N9/835 take precedence) · CPC title

• H04N21/44224 Primary

  Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing · CPC title

• G11B27/36

  Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing {(for digital recording G11B20/00 and s.gr.; for monitoring, testing or measuring of TV recorders of the type covered by H04N5/76 and subgroups, see H04N17/06)} · CPC title

• H04N21/4852

  for modifying audio parameters, e.g. switching between mono and stereo · CPC title

• H04N21/439 Primary

  Processing of audio elementary streams · CPC title