INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS

Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claim is identified in the Application Data Sheet as filed with the present application are hereby incorporated by reference under 37 CFR 1.57.

BACKGROUND

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to video distribution and media players.

Description of the Related Art

The broad accessibility of internet, along with the increasing popularity of affordable digital video recording devices has led to the proliferation of videos shared over the internet. However, conventional techniques for distributing such video content have been inefficient, and conventional media players have not provided adequate controls for navigating through or sharing video content over a network. Further, conventional video distribution systems and media players may use an undesirable amount of network bandwidth in transmitting and accessing portions of a video that will not be utilized.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of one or more aspects in order to provide a basic understanding of such aspects. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated aspects, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all aspects nor delineate the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

Methods and systems are described for distributing video content. In addition, a media player (e.g., a video player) is described that provides enhanced video navigation and video content sharing. A video may include multiple segments in terms of subject-matter content, even though the video may be continuous in nature. Optionally, the video may be arbitrarily logically divided into segments even though the video is in the nature of a single item of content. The video content may be streamed from a server over a network (e.g., an IP network) to a client terminal for playback via the media player. As described herein, navigation images may be received and presented by the media player enabling a user to navigate directly to a video segment corresponding to the navigation image, without having to manipulate a scrubber control and without having to fast forward to the segment. Further, controls and communication protocols are provided that enable a user to share a segment of video content so that the recipient does not have to view content preceding the shared segment and does not have to manipulate a scrubber control to navigate to the video segment, thereby reducing network bandwidth usage for video transmission and providing an enhanced user interface.

In one example, if a viewer clicks on a navigation image corresponding to a video segment to be shared, the browser will generate or access, and transmit a resource locator, such as a URL, to a destination specified by the user. The resource locator may point to the video content and may include a timecode corresponding to a starting point of the video segment being shared. The timecode (or other segment pointer, such as an item identifier associated with an item depicted in the video segment) may be contained within the URL itself, or it may be appended to the end of the URL in a query string or in a URL anchor. Following are examples of resource locators with references to a video segment.

The example below includes a timecode (“tp=32” in this example) pointing to a segment in a referenced video file (“acme-haul” in this example):

http://player.videosite.domain/video/acme-haul?tp=32

The following example refers to a particular item in the video file (a midnight black crop shirt) that corresponds to the shared segment:

http://player.videosite.domain/video/acme+Haul #Midnight+Black+Crop+Shirt

By way of example, the media player may transmit the segment resource locator via one or more communication channels, optionally including one or more of the following: a messaging service (e.g., a short messaging service, such as SMS, MMS, iMessage), an email, a social networking page, a microblog, or otherwise.

An aspect of the disclosure relates to a video player system, comprising: at least one processing device; non-transitory memory storing programmatic code that when executed by the at least one processing device, cause the video player system to: receive a first plurality of navigation images corresponding to respective different segments of a video, the video having a first plurality of video segments; receive the video via streaming from a video hosting server; decode and play the streaming video; display the first plurality of navigation images while the streaming video is played; receive a video sharing instruction; provide a user interface enabling selection of at least one of the first plurality of video segments; provide a user interface enabling specification of at least one communication channel; provide a user interface enabling specification of at least one destination; receive a selection of a video segment via the user interface enabling selection of at least one of the first plurality of video segments; receive a specification of a communication channel via the user interface enabling specification of at least one communication channel; receive a specification of a destination via the user interface enabling specification of at least one destination; generate or access a resource locator including a pointer to the selected video segment; transmit the resource locator including the pointer to the selected video segment via the specified communication channel to the specified destination.

An aspect of the disclosure relates to a system for distribution of video content, comprising: at least one processing device; non-transitory memory storing programmatic code that when executed by the at least one processing device, cause the system to: receive an upload of a first video from a first user terminal; provide a user interface to the first user terminal enabling a first user to define multiple segments in the first video, including at least a starting point of a first segment and a starting point of a second segment; provide a user interface to the first user terminal enabling the first user to specify a first navigation image corresponding to the first segment and second navigation image corresponding the first segment; provide a user interface to the first user terminal enabling the first user to specify at least a searchable first tag to be associated with the first segment and a searchable second tag to be associated with the second segment; provide a video player for display on a second user terminal of a second user; cause at least the second navigation image to be displayed over a side of the first segment of the first video while the video player is playing the first segment of the first video, wherein in response to detecting that the second navigation image, displayed over the side of the first segment of the first video, has been selected prior to completion of playing the first video segment, the video player causes the second segment of the first video to be played without completing playing the first segment of the first video; provide a share control via the video player, wherein in response to detecting activation of the share control, a link to content of the first video is shared with a first recipient.

An aspect of the disclosure relates to a method comprising: receiving an upload of a first video from a first user terminal at a first system; providing by the first system a user interface to the first user terminal enabling a first user to define multiple segments in the first video, including at least a starting point of a first segment and a starting point of a second segment; providing by the first system a user interface to the user terminal enabling the first user to specify a first navigation image corresponding to the first segment and second navigation image corresponding the first segment; providing by the first system a user interface to the user terminal enabling the first user to specify at least a searchable first tag to be associated with the first segment and a searchable second tag to be associated with the second segment; providing by the first system a video player for display on a second user terminal of a second user; causing at least the second navigation image to be displayed over a side of the first segment of the first video while the video player is playing the first segment of the first video, wherein in response to detecting that the second navigation image, displayed over the side of the first segment of the first video, has been selected prior to completion of playing the first video segment, the video player causes the second segment of the first video to be played without completing playing the first segment of the first video; providing by the first system a share control via the video player, wherein in response to detecting activation of the share control, a link to content of the first video is shared with a first recipient

