MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to scheduling and playback of multimedia contents, and more particularly to a system and method for secure playback of scheduled multimedia contents. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In today's digital and Internet world copyrighted digital media contents such as videos and music are often shared using peer-to-peer networks or content sharing sites on the internet. The proliferation of social media and content sharing mobile applications along with the pervasiveness of high speed Internet made possible by broadband and mobile networks has increased the illegal distribution of digital content causing huge revenue losses to the content creators and owners due to copyright infringement. The original content could also be transformed in a variety of ways thus making it difficult to identify the true ownership of a content, e.g., when parts from different sources are mixed to create new content, and when content is transcoded.

Digital contents must be protected from unauthorized copying, illegal redistribution, misappropriation, and piracy so that continuous monetization to the contents owner are ensured. Hence, it is the focus of content owners to ensure that legitimate content consumption is maximized. Purchased or subscribed contents therefore must not be easily duplicated. Even if that is not possible, preventive steps must be taken so that at least the contents cannot be duplicated at the quality level of that of the original copy. The aforementioned problem is further aggravated when unattended devices are involved. These devices _< which are part of a larger system, are deployed in remote/public areas and this property makes them especially more vulnerable to attacks such as hacking, sabotage, and unauthorized copying of contents. An example of such a system is a remote controlled cloud-based digital signage system. Such a system involves deploying playback devices unattended in public areas like shopping centres, schools, and airports.

US Patent US20080127037A1 disclosed a method and apparatus for secure transfer and playback of multimedia content to enable secure transfer of multimedia contents from a digital video recorder (DVR) to a personal computer (PC) and further to a handheld device. The DVR determines which devices on a Local Area network (LAN) are authorized to share and/or retrieve content from the DVR. The DVR receives a connection request from the PC on the LAN, authorizes the connection request and establishes a secure connection between the DVR and the PC. Once the secure connection is established, the DVR receives a request for multimedia content from the PC, prepares the multimedia content for transfer and transfers the multimedia content to the PC.

US Patent 2005/01078519 A1 disclosed a method and apparatus for secure multimedia transfer provides an encrypted data transfer system that makes transferring multimedia content from a client to any incompatible system or to a system outside the location of the client. The system also provides a secure transfer of multimedia content between multimedia systems. The content is transferred securely within system by using encryption of strong public key and decryption of private key.

US Patent 2006/0020980 A1 disclosed a secure, media exchange network and a method of securely exchanging media between electronic devices across the network. In an embodiment according to the invention, media may be securely and simultaneously exchanged between friends, family members, business associates, government entities, military entities, law enforcement entities, and 3rd party media providers over a closed and secure media exchange network. The media may include, for example digital video, digital audio, digital image, digital data, or any other form of digital information. Security features may include security techniques, associated security hardware, and associated security software.

The security measures disclosed in all the above related arts assume that some user is available with the devices for authentication and authorization. However, this assumption is not true for systems involving unattended devices. In systems involving unattended devices, the devices are placed in remote places where the typical authorization and authentication process does not work because no human is there to provide the authorization and authentication credentials like username and password. Hence, there is a need for a system and method to protect the contents from these devices while ensuring that their normal operation or intended purpose is not disrupted.

SUGARY OF INVENTION

The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

It is an objective of the present invention to provide an improved system and method for secure playback of scheduled multimedia contents. According to the present invention, there is provided a system for protecting contents from unauthorized copying or recording during downloading, storage, and playback.

One aspect of the invention provides a system for secure playback of scheduled multimedia contents comprising a content administrator for uploading contents to a content server and providing instructions to the content server to dispatch the contents; the content server for receiving and storing the contents uploaded by the content administrator and dispatching the contents upon receiving instructions from the content administrator; and a display hosting device for receiving the contents dispatched by the content server and managing the delivery of the contents to a display device; characterized in that the display hosting device further comprising a projection agent for controlling the delivery of the contents to the display device connected to the display hosting device by loading an overlay content sender module that match with the connected display device, wherein the overlay content sender module encodes and delivers the contents to the display device.

Another aspect of the invention relates to the display hosting device that further comprising a setup manager for managing and coordinating operations within the device; a content agent for downloading, decrypting, and playing the contents according to a schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator; and a device agent for monitoring and managing devices connected to the display hosting device.

In another aspect of the present invention relates to the overlay content sender module that matches with the connected display device is determined by checking the display device with a list of pre-registered device in the device agent. In another aspect of the present invention relates to the display device that is configured for receiving and displaying the contents received from the display hosting device. StsiS another aspect of this invention provides a method for secure playback of scheduled multimedia contents characterized by the steps of uploading the contents to a content server by a content administrator; dispatching the contents upon receiving instructions from the content administrator by the content server; managing delivery of the contents received from the content server by a display hosting device to a display device; and decoding and displaying the contents by the display device,

Yet another aspect of this invention relates to the step of managing delivery of the contents received from the content server by the display hosting device to the display device comprising the steps of activating a content agent, a device agent, and a projection agent by a setup manager; downloading the contents scheduled by the content administrator by the content agent; performing playback of the contents by the content agent according to a schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator; monitoring the display device connected to the display hosting device by the device agent; and delivering the contents from the display hosting device to the display device through an overlay content sender module that matched with the display device by the projection agent, Another aspect of this invention relates the step of downloading the contents scheduled by the content administrator by the content agent comprising the steps of scheduling the playback of contents by the content administrator; submitting heartbeat and traceroute messages at regular intervals to the content server by the content agent; providing content descriptor and playback settings to the content agent by the content server; retrieving information from the content descriptor by the content agent; determining the content agent’s role by the content agent, wherein the role of the content agent is determined by referring to the information from the content descriptor; establishing a secure connection to download the contents, wherein the content are encrypted using a public key of the content agent by the content server if the role of the content agent is a leader; downloading the contents from the content server; downloading the contents from another content agent within a same local area network if the content agent is a follower; storing the downloaded encrypted contents in a secondary storage by the content agent; and decrypting the contents using a private key by the content agent prior to playback,

Still another aspect of this invention relates to the step of performing playback of contents by the content agent according to schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator comprising the steps of configuring playback settings by the content administrator; retrieving the playback schedule from the playback settings; determining if advance playback mode is selected if there is scheduled playback; playing the scheduled media file if the advance mode is not selected; retrieving the number of display devices and their information such as IDs, playback duration, interval, and orientation if advance playback mode is selected; duplicating the scheduled media file to other display hosting devices based on the retrieving IDs; notifying each of the display hosting device of their playback start times; synchronizing a dates and times of every display hosting device; arranging the display devices connected to the display hosting devices sequentially according to their IDs and orientation; and starting the playback of every display hosting device according to the synchronized schedule.

Another aspect of this invention relates to the step of monitoring the display device connected to the display hosting device by the device agent comprising the steps of detecting active display connections on display ports of the display hosting device; stopping the projection if an active display connection is detected; identifying connections on general Input/output ports of the display hosting device; notifying the projection agent status and !

information of any display devices connected to the general input/output ports; determining if the display devices connected to the general input/output ports of the display hosting device are authorized; and stopping projection if a display device connected to the general input/output ports of the display hosting device is unauthorized.

Still another aspect of this invention relates to the step of delivering the contents from the display hosting device to the display device by the projection agent comprising the steps of retrieving information of the display device connected to the general input/output port of the display hosting device by the projection agent; loading and activating the overlay content sender module that matches with the display device connected to the display hosting device by the projection agent; loading an appropriate user interface command mapping for controlling the overlay content sender module by the projection agent; establishing a connection to the display device by the overlay content sender module; moving the overlay content sender module to a hidden virtual screen by the projection agent; changing the resolution of the display device through the overlay content sender module by the projection agent; verifying the change in the display resolution of the display device by the projection agent; reiterating steps of changing the resolution and verifying the change in the display resolution to conclude the verification process by the projection agent, wherein the steps are reiterated for a prescribed number of times; and delivering the contents to the display hosting device by the overlay content sender module.

It is therefore an advantage of the present invention that a display hosting device is able to terminate the projection of any connected display device based on the connectivity or status of the display and general input/output ports of the display hosting device . The present invention also makes efficient use of the network bandwidth by downloading required contents only when a local copy of a content is not available in the same local area network.

The foregoing and other objects, features aspects, and advantages of the present invention will be better understood from careful reading of a detailed description provided herein below with relevance to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

FIG, 1 illustrates the interconnectivity between a content administrator, a content server, a display device hosting, and a display device according to one embodiment of the present Invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates the details of a display hosting device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG, 3 illustrates a flowchart of a method for managing and playback of scheduled multimedia contents according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method for managing delivery of contents by the display hosting device according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a method for downloading a playback content scheduled by a content administrator according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of a method for performing playback of scheduled contents according to schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a diagram of advance playback mode in action whereby multiple playback devices are orchestrated to play the same content at different times so that the combined playback seems like one big video according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart of a method for monitoring the display device connected to the display hosting device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 illustrates a flowchart of a method for delivering the content from display hosting device to display device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described herein below with references to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, well known functions or constructions are not described in detail since there would obscure the description with unnecessary details.

The present invention relates to a system and method for secure playback of scheduled multimedia contents. The system as illustrated in FIG. 1 comprises a content administrator (110), a content server (120), a display hosting device (130), and a display device (140). These units work together to perform the system functionalities.

Further explanation about the system is shown in FIG. 2. The content administrator (1 10) is responsible for uploading contents to the content server (120) and providing instructions to the content server (120) for dispatching the contents from the content server (120) to the display hosting device (130) via a graphical user interface (GUI). For each schedule time slot, the content administrator (1 10) also determines the playback settings to be performed by the display device (140).

The content server (120) is responsible for securely storing the uploaded contents and is typically hosted on the Internet with a publicly accessible Internet Protocol (IP) address to allow for access from anywhere in the world.

The contents received from the content server (120) are managed by the display hosting device (130) for delivering process to the display device (140) The display hosting device (130) further comprises a setup manager (131 ), a content agent (132), a device agent (133), a projection agent (134), and an overlay content sender module (137).

The display hosting device (130) is responsible for downloading the contents from the content server (120) and subsequently delivers the content to the display device (140) for display. Prior to downloading of the contents from the content server (120), the setup manager (131 ) activates the content agent (132), the device agent (133), and projection agent (134). The setup manager (131) is the main controller of the display hosting device (130) and is responsible for activating and coordinating the operations within the device (130). All the activated agents (132, 133,134) must report their statuses back to the setup manager (131). When the content administrator (1 10) schedules some contents to be played at the display hosting device (130), the content agent (132) is triggered to download the contents from the content server (120) into a secondary storage (136). The contents are transferred in encrypted form from the content server (120) to the display hosting device (130). Prior to playback, the content agent (132) moves the contents from the secondary storage (136) to a primary storage (135) for decryption. When the contents are decrypted, the setup manager (131 ) invokes the projection agent to load the overlay content sender module (137) for delivering the contents in a display memory of the display hosting device (130) to the display device (140).

To perform the above process, the projection agent (134) consults the device agent (133) to determine the type of display device (140) that is connected to the display hosting device (130), and loads the overlay content sender module (137) that matches with the connected display device (140) to capture the content being played directly from the display memory of the display hosting device (130). The overlay content sender module (137) subsequently delivers the contents to the display device (140) for display.

The contents received from the display hosting device (130) are displayed by the display device (140). The display device (140) refers to a device for displaying video such as a projector, monitor, or television Conventionally, the display device (140) receives video signal though a display connection such as Video Graphic Array (VGA), High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMi), and Display Port (DP). Instead of receiving video signal through conventional display connections, there also exist display devices (140) which can receive video signal through a general purpose input/output connection with proprietary software residing on both the sender end and the receiver end of the connection. The general purpose input/output port preferably is a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection. When using general input/output port connection for transferring video signal, the video signal Is typically communicated between the display hosting device (130) and display device (140) using a proprietary protocol The protocol used depends on the type of the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130).. This video transmission scheme provides some protection against unauthorized recording as the recorded encoded video signal from the general input/output port connection must be decoded before the original video signal can be retrieved.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method of securely managing and playback of scheduled multimedia contents. The general method as depicted in FIG. 3, preferably begins with the step of uploading (200) of contents to the content server (120) by the content administrator (110). The content server (120) subsequently dispatches (400) the content to the display hosting device upon receiving instructions from the content administrator (110). When the contents are received, the display hosting device (130) further manages (600) the delivery of the contents to the display device (140) for decoding and displaying (800).

In particular, the step of managing (600) delivery of the contents received from the content server (120) by the display hosting device (130) to the display device (140) will be described further in FIG. 4. In order to manage the delivery of contents, the setup manager (131) residing in the display hosting device (130) must activate (620) the content agent (132), the device agent (133), and the projection agent (134). The content agent (132) further downloads (640) the contents scheduled by the content administrator (1 10) prior to performing playback (680) of the contents according to schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator (110). While performing the playback, the device agent (133) monitors (700) the display device (140) that Is connected to the display hosting device (130). This action is also supported by the projection agent (134) which communicates with the device agent (133) to determine the type of the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130) and whether it is authorized or not. Once the display device is verified, the content is delivered accordingly (720)

As shown in FIG 5, further step of downloading (640) the contents scheduled by the content administrator (1 10) by the content agent (132) is described herein The steps of downloading the contents begins with the step of scheduling (641 ) of contents playback by the content administrator (1 10), The process is initiated by the content administrator (1 10) who selects some contents from the content server (120) for playback at the display hosting device (130) at a certain date, time, and mode. The content agent (132) also submits (642) heartbeat and fraceroute messages at regular intervals to the content server (120) The heartbeat message preferably is a simple message sent to the content server (120) periodically by the content agent (132) to allow the content server (120) to know that the content agent (132) is still connected. Meanwhile, the traceroute message preferably is an indication for the content server (120) to decide which route a packet can take to reach the display hosting device (130)

Still referring to FIG. 5, upon receiving the message from the content agent (132), the content administrator (110) will instruct the content server (120) to provide the content descriptor and playback settings to the content agent (132) The information residing in the content descriptor is preferably but not limited to content title, content type, content size, content agent role, and source address. The content agent (132) then retrieves (644) the information residing in the content descriptor. The information is used for the content server (120) to communicate with the content agent (132) for determining the content agent’s role (132). The role of the content agent (132) is determined, either a leader or a follower (645). This action is needed to determine where the scheduled contents can be downloaded from; either from the content server (120) directly or from another content agent (132) in the same local area network (LAN) If a content agent (132) is a leader, it establishes a secure connection (646) to the content server (120) to download the scheduled contents which are encrypted (647) using a pubiic key of the content agent (132) by the content server (120). However, if a content agent (132) is a follower, it downloads the contents from another content agent (132) in the same LAN (648). This is called adaptive downloading, whereby the content agents (132) download from different sources based on their role. The idea of adaptive downloading Is to reduce Internet data usage by capitalizing on local downloaded copies within the same LAN. The downloaded content is then stored (649) in the secondary storage (136) by the content agent (132) When it is the time to start the playback, the content agent (132) decrypts (650) the content using a private key of the content agent (132) The content agent (132) then start playback according to schedule and playback settings as configured by the content administrator (110).

Further step of performing playback (680) of the scheduled contents by the content agent (132) according to the playback settings as configured by the content administrator (1 10) is described in FIG 6 The playback settings are configured (681 ) by the content administrator (1 10) when the content administrator scheduled some contents to be played. The content agent (132) then retrieves (682) the schedule from the playback settings, The schedule preferably refers to a list of dates and times to playback some contents. Meanwhile, the mode refers to additional settings assigned to the schedule playback which preferably include a playback duration, sequence of the playback, and advance playback option. The advance playback option is a field that is set to either true or false. If it is true, the advance playback mode should be used, otherwise the advance playback mode is not selected. The sequence of the playback should be referred if the playback includes a list of media files to be played. If there is scheduled playback (683), the advance playback mode is determined (684). In this mode, multiple display devices can be orchestrated to play the same content at different times as if it is one content. The content descriptor is referred to determine whether the advance playback mode is enabled or not.

Still referring to FIG. 8, if the advance playback mode is not selected, the scheduled media file is played (685), If the advance playback mode is selected, the number of display devices connected to the display hosting device (130) and their information (140) is retrieved, whereby the information preferably includes but is not limited to identities (IDs), playback duration, interval, and orientation as in step 686 The advance playback mode provides the capability of linking multiple display devices (140) to be concatenated between each other, whereby a right edge of one of the display device (140) is virtually linked to a left edge of a second of the display device (140). The aim of the advance playback mode is to play one content at different display hosting devices at different times coherently as one content. An example of advance playback mode in action is illustrated in FIG. 7. In this example, the presented content is tailor-made to flow in from the left most of the display device, traversing across the multiple display devices towards the right most display device.

After retrieving step, the media file is duplicated to other display hosting devices (130) based on the retrieving IDs as in step 887. A playback start time is notified to the display hosting device (130) as in step 688. Before the playback starts, it is crucial to synchronize (689) the dates and times of the affected display hosting devices (130) in order to orchestrate the entire playback process. Each of the display hosting devices (130) will also be arranged (690) sequentially according to their IDs and predetermined orientation. The orientation preferably refers to a playback direction, for example; from left to right or right to left. The playback will be started according to the synchronized schedule (691 ) If the playback time is expired (692), the process will be terminated. Referring to FIG. 8, the step of monitoring (700) the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130) by the device agent (133) to prevent the contents from unauthorized copying or recording during playback is described herein. The delivery of contents from the display hosting device (130) to the display device (140) is done via a general input/output port connection. Any connection on the display ports such as VGA, HDMI or display port is considered as an active display connection, whereby the active display connection is interpreted by the device agent (133) as the unauthorized attempt to record the contents of the display hosting device (130) The step begins with the step of detecting (701 ) active display connections on the display ports of the display hosting device (140) by the device agent (133) if there is an active display connection to the display hosting device (130), the projection agent (134) will stop the projection of the contents (702). if there is no active display connection, the step further identifies (703) the connections on the general input/output ports; i.e. USB ports of the display hosting device (130). When a USB device is connected, the device agent (133) notifies the projection agent (134) status and information of the connected USB device for verification process (704). To further verify the connected display device (140), the authorization of the display device (140) connected to the general ^" input/output port of the display hosting device (130) is determined (705) by checking the device (140) against a list of pre-registered device in the device agent (133). The projection will be stopped if the device is an unauthorized device (706). Otherwise, the content will be delivered accordingly (707).

FIG. 9 is referred for delivering (720) the contents from the display hosting device (130) to the display device (120) by the projection agent (134). The steps begin with retrieving information (721 ) of the display device (140) connected to the general input/output port of the display hosting device (130) by the projection agent (134). When the display device (140) connected is determined as an authorized device, the projection agent (134) loads and activates (722) the overlay content sender module (137) that matched with the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130) For example, if the connected display device (140) is a SAMSUNG display device, the projection agent (134) will load a SAMSUNG overlay content sender module (137). Then, the projection agent (134) further loads and activates an appropriate user Interface (Ul) command mapping (723) to the overlay content sender module (137) for controlling the overlay content sender module (137) A mapping is a set of keyboard key combinations or mouse actions that can be triggered for the overlay content sender module (137) to perform some action. By issuing the appropriate Ul command, the projection agent (134) can initiate the overlay content sender module (137) to establish (724) a connection to the display hosting device (130). When the connection is established, the overlay content sender module (137) is moved (725) to a hidden virtual screen as in step 725, The overlay content sender module (137) then changes the resolution (726) of the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130) using the appropriate commands.

Still referring to FIG. 9, the changes in the display resolution of the display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130) is verified (727) by the projection agent (134). This is done by retrieving the information of the connected display device (140) through a web interface provided by the overlay content sender module (137). The steps of 726 and 727 are reiterated for a prescribed number of times, e.g., three times, to finalize device verification by the projection agent (134) When the verification process is completed, the projection agent (134) instructs the overlay content sender module (137) to encode and deliver the content to the display hosting device (130). By implementing the overlay content sender module (137), the present invention is device agnostic as it is able to support different types of display device (140) connected to the display hosting device (130).

The terms“a” and“an,” as used herein, are defined as one or more than one. The term“plurality,'’ as used herein, is defined as two or more than two. The term“another,” as used herein, is defined as at least a second or more. The terms Including’’ and/or“having,” as used herein, are defined as comprising (i.e. open language).

While this invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.