Multimedia Distribution System for Multimedia Files with Interleaved Media Chunks of Varying Types

摘要

A multimedia file and methods of generating, distributing and using the multimedia file are described. Multimedia files in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can contain multiple video tracks, multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitle tracks, data that can be used to generate a menu interface to access the contents of the file and ‘meta data’ concerning the contents of the file. Multimedia files in accordance with several embodiments of the present invention also include references to video tracks, audio tracks, subtitle tracks and ‘meta data’ external to the file. One embodiment of a multimedia file in accordance with the present invention includes a series of encoded video frames and encoded menu information.

主权项

1. A system for decoding multimedia files comprising:
a processor configured by software to extract information from the multimedia file; wherein the processor is configured by software to inspect the multimedia file to determine when there is at least one subtitle track; wherein the multimedia file includes at least one video track encoded asvideo chunks, at least one subtitle track encoded as subtitle chunks, and an index chunk;
wherein each subtitle chunk includes information concerning a single subtitle; wherein the index chunk includes information concerning the location of data chunks within the multimedia file including the locations of video chunks from the at least one video track and the locations of subtitle chunks from the at least one subtitle track; and wherein each subtitle is encoded in the subtitle chunks as a bit map; wherein the processor is configured to decode the video chunk and identify a previous subtitle chunk that contains subtitle information for the decoded video chunk using the index chunk; and wherein the processor is configured by software to construct a frame of video for display by superimposing the bit map from the identified subtitle chunk over a portion of the video sequence.