Apple patent reflects plans to beef up iTunes Store offerings

Posted by Dennis Sellers Dec 3, 2009 at 12:23pm

Apple plans on beefing up the offerings at its iTunes Store, perhaps even beyond the iTunes Extras and iTunes LPs it now provides, per a new patent (20090297126) that’s appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

A system and method of delivering a media package to an on-line downloading store are disclosed. The method includes receiving a media file into a compressor application in which at least one compression job is assigned for the media file. The method further includes receiving setting data and destination data for storing a media package associated with processing the media file. The method next includes retrieving pre-defined asset metadata based on user-submitted credential data and vendor identification data, receiving contract acceptance data based on a pre-existing contract associated with the media file and generating a media package configured for ingestion into the on-line media store for each at least one compression job assigned to the media file.

Here’s Apple’s background and summary of the invention: “With the development of the internet, on-line downloading stores or applications have become very popular. These stores allow consumers with internet access to purchase and download authorized digital copies of media files. Examples of media files that can be downloaded upon purchase include, for example, TV shows, movies, music, games and computer applications. These media files available for purchase can be downloaded and played on personal computers, portable media players, smart phones, cell phones, televisions, television media players, video game devices and other electronic devices. These on-line downloading stores are popular with consumers because they allow a consumer to conveniently download the desired content whenever they are connected to the internet. Generally, consumers desire an on-line downloading server with a very large selection of media available for download. Content creators typically upload or digitally send their media to on-line stores to make them available for purchase. This process can be complicated and time consuming inasmuch as there are many parameters and criteria that need to be met for proper ingestion of the media into the on-line stores.

Although large corporate media content creators typically have dedicated teams and resources to deliver content that meets an on-line downloading store’s submission criteria, independent media content creators often lack such resources. Therefore, what is needed is a method and apparatus for generating a media package configured to be ingested into an on-line downloading store that can be operated in a simple manner by any type of media content creator.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth herein.

This invention disclosure describes a method and apparatus for generating a media package configured for ingesting in an on-line media store. Disclosed are systems, methods and computer readable media for receiving data and a media file and generating a media package configured for ingestion into an on-line media store such as iTunes from Apple, Inc.

“The method embodiment is illustrative of the invention and the principles associated with the method are applicable and to the system and computer readable medium embodiments. A method of delivering a media package to an on-line downloading store is disclosed. The method includes receiving a media file into a compressor application in which at least one compression job is assigned for the media file, receiving setting data and destination data for storing a media package associated with processing the media file, retrieving pre-defined asset metadata based on user-submitted credential data and vendor identification data, receiving contract acceptance data based on a pre-existing contract associated with the media file and generating a media package configured for ingesting into the on-line media store for each at least one compression job assigned to the media file. The compressor module or application may be, for example, the Compressor tool provided by Apple, Inc., or any other compression application that performs the function of receiving media content and provide a convenient mechanism to choose various compression settings and output formats. Therefore, the term “compressor application” or module generally refers to either Apple’s Compressor tool or a similar compression application that performs audio and/or video encoding.

“One context in which the invention may apply is as a plug-in to a compressor application. As is known in the art, Apple, Inc. provides a compressor application that enables users to convert one or more source media files into one or more different media file output formats. Using the compressor application, a media file, in fairly simple manner, can be converted to H.264 and MP3 (for output devices such as an iPod or Apple TV), MPEG-4 or Quicktime (for a broadband and lowband streaming using Quicktime), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AIFF for DVD video or AIFF, MP3 or Quicktime for CD-ROM. This is not an exhaustive list. Other standard based compression algorithms may be used as well. In one aspect, the method and concepts disclosed herein may be added as an additional feature to the compression application as discussed above such the user can convert media to one or more particular formats and create an additional job that generates a media package in a particular format such as iTMSP (an iTunes Store package) with any additional metadata files such as a metadata.xml file or a chapters.xml file.”

The inventors are Ricardo Cortest, Max Muller III and Jason Fosback.

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