Ten Original iMovie and/or Final Cut Pro Related Patent Applications Published Today

Apple has filed ten video related patents today that relate to either iMovie and/or Final Cut Pro. All of the patent applications were filed under the names of the inventors who are Apple employees. Apple's name doesn't have to appear on the patent until it's been granted. Apple often does this in the hopes that IP new sites like ours don't find them. Today we were lucky to notice a few of the inventor's names like Randy Ubillos who is Apple's Chief Architect of Video Applications who has made many presentations during a Keynote Event covering iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Another is Giovanni Agnoli who's an engineering manager at Apple, and so forth.

One: Media-Editing Application with Novel Editing Tools

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments provide a media-editing application with novel editing tools. The media editing application provides an in-line precision editor that can be opened in the composite display area. In some embodiments, a selection of an edge between two clips expands a composite lane into two lanes, a first lane and a second lane. The first lane is then used to perform edits to the left side of the selected edge, while the second lane is used to perform edits to the right side of the selected edge. In some embodiments, the first lane shows the additional media content available for the clip on the left side of the edge to include. The second lane shows the additional media content available for the clip on the right side of the edge to include. The additional media content is in the source media file, of which a clip represents a portion. Patent Source

Two: Media-Editing Application with Live Dragging and Live Editing Capabilities

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a media-editing application for creating and editing a media presentation that displays the results of edits as the edits are made to the media presentation. The media-editing application displays the movement of media clips of the media presentation as the media clips are being moved within the media-editing application to change the media presentation. Also, the media editing application in some embodiments can dynamically display the results of edits in a preview display area. That is, the media editing application has a preview generator that can generate previews of the media presentation on the fly as media clips are being dragged into and within the timeline. This allows the user of the media-editing application to see and hear the results of the operation while performing them. Patent Source

Three: Media-Editing Application with Multiple Resolution Modes

Apple's Patent Abstract: For a media-editing application, some embodiments provide a method for creating a media presentation that combines several media clips. During an editing process to define a particular media project, the method receives a first set of edits to the particular media project while the media-editing application is in a first resolution mode that uses content stored at a first resolution to generate the particular media project. The method receives a selection of a user interface tool to modify the resolution mode. The method switches to a second resolution mode that uses content stored at a second resolution to generate the particular media project without interrupting the editing process. After switching to the second resolution mode, the method receives a second set of edits to the same particular media project during the same editing process to define the particular media project.

Four: Data Structures for a Media-Editing Application

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for defining a data structure for representing a media file imported into a media-editing application. The method defines a reference to an original version of a media file. The method defines references to one or more transcoded versions of the media file. Each of the transcoded versions has a different resolution. The method defines a set of metadata storing information regarding the media file. In some embodiments, the media file includes both audio and video. The method defines a video clip data structure for the media file that references the first data structure and an audio clip data structure for the media file that also references the asset data structure. The method defines a media clip data structure that contains the video clip data structure and the audio clip data structure. The media clip data structure is for editing into a composite video presentation. Patent Source

Five: Media Clip Management

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for editing a composite presentation in a media-editing application. The method receives a media file to import into the media-editing application from an external device. The method creates a set of media clip data structures to represent the media file. At least one of the data structures references the media file on the external device. Before the media file is imported from the external device, the method uses the media clip data structure to edit a composite presentation with the media file. After the media file is imported from the external device, automatically modifying the data structure to refer to a copy of the media file on a local device. Patent Source

Six: Efficient Media Import

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments provide a media-editing application. The application receives a command to import a media file into the media-editing application. The media file includes a sequence of video images. The application copies the media file to a storage location associated with the media-editing application. The method performs several analysis and transcode operations on the media file in parallel. In some embodiments, the application identifies a video image on which to the operations. The application schedules a single set of image preparation operations for the video image to generate one or more sets of image data for the operations. The method sends the image data to the different operations. A same set of image data is sent to at least two of the operations. Patent Source

Seven: Media-Editing Application with Media Clips Grouping Capabilities

Apple's Patent Abstract: A media-editing application of some embodiments allows a user of the application to group media clips displayed in the timeline into a single clip representation. A composite display area of the media-editing application often displays numerous clips at various instances in time and at various levels in the compositing hierarchy. To reduce the number of media clips in the timeline, the media-editing application of some embodiments allows the user to select several media clips and combine them into a one media clip representation. In this manner, the media-editing application reduces the congestion in the timeline. These single clip representations are referred to as "compound clips." Compound clips can be viewed as containers that can include several media clips of the same type in some embodiments, or that can include several media clips of several different types in other embodiments. Patent Source

Eight: Media-Editing Application with Anchored Timeline

Apple's Patent Abstract: A media application of some embodiments includes a timeline, which is a composite display area for displaying media clips that are part of the composite media presentation. The timeline of some embodiments includes a primary lane called a spine as well as one or more anchor lanes. The spine represents a primary sequence of media, which, in some embodiments, does not have any gaps. When a clip is deleted or removed from the timeline, the media-editing applications automatically closes the gap created in place of the clip. The clips in the anchor lanes are anchored to a particular position along the spine. Anchor lanes may be used for compositing (e.g., removing portions of one video and showing a different video in those portions), B-roll cuts (i.e., cutting away from the primary video to a different video whose clip is in the anchor lane), audio clips, or other composite presentation techniques. Patent Source

Nine: Retiming Media Presentations

Apple's Patent Abstract: A novel method for retiming a portion of a media content (e.g., audio data, video data, audio and video data, etc.) in a media-editing application is provided. The media editing application includes a user interface for defining a range in order to select a portion of the media content. The media editing application performs retiming by applying a speed effect to the portion of the media content selected by the defined range. For a faster speed effect, the media editing application retimes the selected portion of the media content by sampling the media content at a faster rate. For a slower speed effect, the media editing application retimes the selected portion of the media content by sampling the content at a slower rate. Patent Source

Ten: Efficient Media Processing

Apple's Patent Abstract: Some embodiments provide a media-editing application. The application includes several image processing destinations for performing operations on video images. The application includes a scheduling engine for scheduling disk read, decode, and graphics processing operations to perform on images to prepare the images for the several destinations. The scheduling engine includes a first set of instructions for scheduling images based on a speed at which a particular one of the several destinations processes the images when none of the destinations require images in real-time. The scheduling engine includes a second set of instructions for scheduling images based on a real-time clock when at least one of the several destinations requires images in real-time. Patent Source

Apple also updated a few as continuation patents for "Rate Conform Operation for a Media-Editing Application," (under patent application 20120210232) and "Spatial Conform Operation for a Media-Editing Application," (under patent application 20120207452). In addition to those relating to iMovie and Final Cut Pro, two other video related patents were published today and are noted below.

New Patent Application: Visually Masked Metric for Pixel Block Similarity

Aspects of this particular Apple invention relate generally to the field of video processing, and more specifically to selecting an appropriate mode for coding video data. According to Apple, there is a need in the art for a video encoding system capable of effectively taking advantage of the low bandwidth skip mode without introducing visible artifacts to the image.

Apple's Patent Abstract: Selecting a coding mode for coding video data by measuring a distortion sensitivity threshold for a pixel block, calculating a distortion threshold representative of the maximum distortion that may be effectively masked by the brightness and texture of the pixel block, estimating the distortion induced by coding the pixel block according to skip mode and coding the source pixel block with a predictive coding technique if the estimated distortion value exceeds the distortion threshold. The distortion sensitivity threshold may include, for example, a brightness value or a texture value. The contrast between the pixel block and the surrounding pixel blocks may also be considered such that if the contrast exceeds a contrast threshold calculated based on the measurement of brightness and texture, the source pixel block may be coded with a predictive coding technique even if the estimated distortion value does not exceed the distortion threshold.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram illustrating components of an exemplary video coding system according to an embodiment of the present invention. Patent Source

New Patent Application: Cross Reference to Related Applications – A Novel Masking Tool for Media-Editing Application

Apple's patent background states that when editing a video clip, many different operations may be performed to the video clip. For example, a frame (or frames) of the video clip may be modified in order to achieve a particular appearance, look, or feel. One of the many ways to modify the frame of the video clip is to modify the colors of the frame. Sometimes a user (e.g., an editor, colorist) may wish to modify the colors of the entire frame of the video clip. However, the user may also wish to modify the colors of only a portion of the frame of the video clip.

Many different video editing tools exist for identifying a portion of the frame that is going to be modified. For instance, some video editing tools allow the user to specify a particular range(s) of color attributes (e.g., luminance, saturation, hues, etc.) in order to identify a portion of the frame to modify the colors of the portion of the frame. Some video editing tools even allow the user to use geometric shapes to specify a particular area of the frame in order to identify a portion of the frame to modify the colors of the portion of the frame.

Apple's invention relates to a novel masking tool for a media-editing application. The masking tool of some embodiments identifies a portion of an image (e.g., a still image, a frame or field of a video clip, etc.) to which a color correction operation (e.g., hue adjustments, saturation adjustments, brightness adjustments, etc.) is applied. These color correction operations are also referred to as secondary color correction operations. Different embodiments of the masking tool identify a portion of an image differently. For instance, some embodiments provide a novel color-based masking tool (also referred to as a color masking tool). The color masking tool of some embodiments identifies a portion of an image based on the colors in the image (i.e., the color values of pixels in the image). Alternatively, or in conjunction with the color-based masking tool, some embodiments provide a novel spatial-based masking tool (also referred to as a shape masking tool). The shape masking tool of some embodiments identifies a portion of an image based on a spatial region in the image (i.e., the location of pixels in the image).

As mentioned above, some embodiments of the invention provide a novel color masking tool for a media-editing application. The color masking tool of some embodiments defines a first portion of a three-dimensional color space based on a selection (e.g., received from a user through a Graphical User Interface ("GUI") of the media-editing application) of a first portion of an image. In some embodiments, the first portion of the three-dimensional color space is a superellipse-based shape (e.g., a super-ellipsoid or superellipsoid) that includes pixel values in the three-dimensional color space of pixels in the first portion of the image. In some embodiments, the three-dimensional color space is an RGB (red, green, blue) color space.

Based on the first portion of the image, the color masking tool of some embodiments defines a color mask. In some embodiments, a color mask specifies pixels in the image that have pixel values included in (i.e., inside) the defined first portion of the three-dimensional color space. In other words, the color mask specifies pixels in the image that have the same or similar pixel values as the pixel values of the pixels in the first portion of the image. In some embodiments, the first portion of the three-dimensional color space is a representation of the color mask in the three-dimensional color space. The color masking tool of some embodiments applies color correction operations (e.g., invoked by a user through selection of a GUI item provided by the media-editing application) to a portion or region of the image (also referred to as secondary color corrections) by using the color mask to isolate pixels in the image that have particular color values and applying color correction operations (e.g., hue adjustments, saturation adjustments, brightness adjustments, etc.) to the isolated pixels.

As mentioned above, some embodiments of the color masking tool define the first portion of the three-dimensional color space as a superellipse-based shape (e.g., a super-ellipsoid or superellipsoid) that includes pixel values in the three-dimensional color space of pixels in the first portion of the image. To determine the first portion, some embodiments identify a first rectangular cuboid in the three-dimensional color space that encompasses pixel values in the three-dimensional color space of pixels in the first portion of the image (also referred to as a bounding box).

In some embodiments, the color masking tool performs Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the pixel values in the three-dimensional color space of the pixels in the first portion of the image. The PCA identifies three orthogonal axes (e.g., x-, y-, and z-axis) for determining the orientation of the first rectangular cuboid in the three-dimensional color space. In addition, the PCA identifies a set of transforms (e.g., a set of matrices) for converting pixel values from the three-dimensional color space to a coordinate system (also referred to as a Bounding Color Sample (BCS) coordinate system) in which the color masking tool of some embodiments defines the first rectangular cuboid.

Apple's patent FIG. 2 conceptually illustrates several states of a three-dimensional color space; FIG. 13 conceptually illustrates the determination of intersections between bounding boxes in a three-dimensional color space according to some embodiments of the invention.

Apple's patent FIG. 20A conceptually illustrates several examples of transition regions defined in a three-dimensional RGB color space according to some embodiments of the invention; patent EFIG. 20B conceptually illustrates two-dimensional views of the defined transition regions illustrated in FIG. 20A. Patent Source

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Notice

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