Apparatus and Method for Context-based Storage and Retrieval of Multimedia Content

1 . A method for retrieving stored multimedia content comprising:

receiving at least a partial search term entered by a user;

generating one or more candidate search terms from the partial search term;

displaying on a display device the one or more candidate search terms;

receiving a selected candidate search term;

using the selected candidate search term and user-context data associated with a current context of the user to identify one or more search results from among the stored multimedia content; and

displaying on the display device a list of the one or more identified search results, which can then be presented to the user.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using user-context data associated with contexts of other users to generate the one or more one or more search results.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using the user-context data associated with the current context of the user to generate the one or more candidate search terms from the partial search term.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using user-context data associated with contexts of other users to generate the one or more candidate search terms from the partial search term.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using the candidate search term to identify a text snippet from each identified search result and displaying a plurality of text snippets with the one or more identified search results listed.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using the user's media consumption patterns to determine how to present to the user a selected search result.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising presenting to the user a selected search result, including:

identifying portions of the selected search result using viewer-provided text comprising comments of users who have commented on the selected search result; and

presenting the identified portions of the selected search result.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising presenting to the user a selected search result, including:

presenting a tag cloud associated with the selected search result comprising one or more tags selected from textual tag data generated from an analysis of the selected search result; and

presenting a portion of the selected search result corresponding to a tag in the tag cloud selected by the user.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising presenting to the user a search result selected from the one or more identified search results and displaying a list of one or more related search results that relate to subject matter in the selected search result.

10 . A method for retrieving stored multimedia content comprising:

receiving at least a partial search term of characters entered by a user;

generating a search term from the partial search term;

using the search term to identify one or more search results from among the stored multimedia content; and

presenting to the user a search result selected from the one or more identified search results, including:

using user-context data associated with a current context of the user to generate summary information from the selected search result; and

presenting the summary information to the user.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising identifying one or more segments of the selected search result to generate the summary information.

12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising using the search term to identify the one or more segments of the selected search result.

13 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising using the user-context data associated with the current context of the user to identify the one or more segments of the selected search result.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the one or more segments of the selected search result are the most viewed segments.

15 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising generating textual tag data from an analysis of the selected search result and generating a tag cloud associated with the selected search result comprising one or more tags selected from the textual tag data to generate the summary information.

16 . The method of claim 15 , further comprising using the search term to identify the one or more tags from the textual tag data of the selected search result.

17 . The method of claim 15 , further comprising using the user-context data associated with the current context of the user to identify the one or more tags from the textual tag data of the selected search result.

18 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising mining viewer-provided text, that is associated with the selected search result, comprising comments of users who have replayed and commented on the selected search result to generate the summary information.

19 . The method of claim 18 , further comprising using the search term to mine the viewer-provided text.

20 . The method of claim 18 , further comprising using the user-context data associated with the current context of the user to mine the viewer-provided text.

21 . A system comprising:

a computer processor; and

a data store having stored thereon computer-executable program code, which when executed by the computer processor, causes the computer processor to:

receive at least a partial search term entered by a user;

generate one or more candidate search terms from the partial search term;

display on a display device the one or more candidate search terms;

receive a selected candidate search term;

use the selected candidate search term and user-context data associated with a current context of the user to identify one or more search results from among the stored multimedia content; and

display on the display device a list of the one or more identified search results, which can then be presented to the user.