Method and device for enhancing ring tones in mobile terminals
View Patent ↗A method and device for producing ring tones in high polyphony in real-time in a network component such as a mobile terminal or a server of a service provider. The network component has one or more ring tones in MIDI files of high polyphony, and a MIDI player of lower polyphony for producing sounds from the scaled down version of the MIDI files in real-time. In order to produce sounds indicative of the high-polyphony ring tones in real-time, the high-polyphony MIDI files are converted to compressed files in a non real-time manner. The converted files are stored in a storage so as to allow a compressed file player (such as Truetone, MP3, wav, AAC, RealAudio, Vorbis) to produce sounds from the converted files. A file lock is provided to the converted files so that they cannot be forwarded, thereby protecting the copyrights of the ring tone composer.
1. A method for improving sound quality of synthesized tones produced on an audio producing component in an electronic device, the electronic device comprising:
a first player;
a first file storage for storing one or more data files so as to allow the first player to produce one or more tones for playing on the audio producing component, wherein the first player is capable of producing said tones based on said one or more data files in a real-time manner up to M-polyphony and wherein the tones so produced contain characteristics of a sound synthesizer, where M is a positive integer;
a different second player; and
a second file storage for storing one or more recording files so as to allow the second player to produce sounds on the audio producing component in a real-time manner, wherein the sounds produced by the second player based on one or more recording files contain characteristics of a recorded sound, said method comprising:
converting at least one of said one or more data files for producing in a non real-time manner at least one converted file having a second player compatible format; and
providing the converted file to the second player so as to produce sounds on the audio producing component in a real-time manner, wherein the sounds produced by the second player based on the converted file contain some characteristics of a sound synthesizer of N-polyphony, wherein N is a positive integer greater than M.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first player comprises a MIDI player.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second player comprises a Truetone player.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second player comprises an AAC player.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the data files are copyright protected and wherein the converted files converted from the at least some data files are provided with a file lock.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising
storing the converted file in the second file storage so as to allow the second player to produce sounds based on the converted file at a later time.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said converting further comprises packing audio signals into frames.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising
providing LED and Vibra control signals.
9. An electronic device, comprising:
a first player;
a first file storage for storing one or more data files so as to allow the first player to produce one or more tones for playing on an audio producing device, wherein the first player is capable of producing said tones based on said one or more data files in a real-time manner up to M-polyphony and wherein the tones so produced contain characteristics of a sound synthesizer, where M is a positive integer;
a different second player;
a second file storage for storing one or more recording files so as to allow the second player to produce sounds on the audio producing device in a real-time manner, wherein the sounds produced by the second player based on one or more recording files contain characteristics of a recorded sound;
a converter for converting at least one of said one or more data files for producing in a non real-time manner at least one converted file having a second player compatible format so as to allow the second player to produce sounds on the audio producing device in a real-time manner based on the converted file, wherein the sounds so produced contain some characteristics of a sound synthesizer of N-polyphony, wherein N is a positive integer greater than M.
10. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the first player comprises a MIDI player.
11. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the second player comprises a Truetone player.
12. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the second player comprises an AAC player.
13. The electronic device of claim 9 , comprising a mobile terminal.
14. The electronic device of claim 9 , comprising a network element.
15. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the sounds produced based on the converted file comprise a ring tone.
16. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the sounds produced based on the converted file comprise a message alert tone.
17. The electronic device of claim 9 , further comprising:
means for accessing an external storage medium for downloading further data files from the storage medium.
18. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein at least some of the data files are copyright protected and wherein the converted files converted from said at least some data files are provided with a file lock so that said converted files are also copyright protected.
19. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein the data files are scalable so as to allow the first player to produce the tones based on the scaled data files in a real-time manner.
20. A file conversion module for use in an electronic device, the electronic device comprising:
a first player; and
a different second player, a file conversion module comprising:
a first file storage for storing one or more data files, wherein the data files can be used by the first player to produce one or more tones to be played on an audio producing component in a real-time manner up to M-polyphony, and wherein the tones so produced contain characteristics of a sound synthesizer and M is a positive integer;
a second file storage for storing one or more recording files, wherein the recording files can be used by the second player to produce sounds on the audio producing component in a real-time manner, and wherein the sounds produced by the second player contain characteristics of a recorded sound; and
a converter for converting at least one of said one or more data files for producing in a non real-time manner at least one converted file having a second player compatible format so as to allow the second player to produce sounds on the audio producing component in a real-time manner based on the converted file, wherein the sounds so produced contain some characteristics of a sound synthesizer of N-polyphony, wherein N is a positive integer greater than M.
21. The file conversion module of claim 20 , wherein the converter comprises a PCM to ADPCM converter.
22. The file conversion module of claim 20 , wherein the converter provides audio signals in said converting, the module further comprising:
a frame packing device, operatively connected to the converter, for packing the audio signal into frames.
23. The file conversion module of claim 20 , wherein the converter is operatively connected to a first player for receiving compressed samples for converting PCM signals to ADPCM signals.
24. The file conversion module of claim 22 , wherein the frame packing device is also operatively connected to the first player for receiving signals therefrom in order to produce a visual effect based on said one or more tones.
25. The file conversion module of claim 22 , wherein the frame packing device is also operatively connected to the first player for receiving signals therefrom in order to produce a vibration signal based on said one or more tones.