Synchronizing audio and text of multimedia segments

Abstract

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for synchronizing segments in a signal stream having an audio component and a text component. In one aspect, a search is made in the text component for a marker text string consisting of at least one word, character or phrase; an audio pattern representative of the marker text string is generated; the audio pattern is located in the audio component; and, the audio and text components are aligned temporally. In another aspect, cue points delineating a start and/or end of a multimedia segment are found. In another aspect, a user can search for a multimedia segment and either read the text feed or listen to the audio feed.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A method for synchronizing a multimedia segment of a signal stream, the signal stream having an audio component and a closed caption text component, the method comprising: 
 locating in the text component a marker text string, the marker text string being one of a set of text strings, each text string in the set made up of at least one word, phrase, or character;    generating an audio pattern representative of the located marker text string;    locating the audio pattern in the audio component; and    temporally aligning the closed caption text component with the audio pattern in the audio component.