Tailoring a broadcast schedule based on storage area and consumer information

• US 20030005438A1
• Filed: 06/29/2001
• Published: 01/02/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Doerner, David W., Crinon, Regis J.
• Application Number:
  US09/895,744
• Publication Number:
  US 20030005438A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42684 Client identification by a unique number or address, e.g. serial number, MAC address, socket ID network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming H04L61/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4335 Housekeeping operations, e.g. prioritizing content for deletion because of storage space restrictions storage management, e.g. defragmentation G06F3/0604; unloading stored programs G06F9/445; storage management in file systems G06F16/10; buffering arrangements in a network node or in an end terminal in packet networks H04L49/90
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4424 Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the client device, e.g. CPU or memory load, processing speed, timer, counter or percentage of the hard disk space used error monitoring in general G06F11/30; arrangements for monitoring conditions of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/32; diagnosis, testing or measuring for television receivers H04N17/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

An apparatus, computer readable medium, and method includes selecting and scheduling, substantially automatically, multimedia-content to be broadcast to a consumer, based on information obtained from at least one of the consumer and a storage area.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving information obtained from at least one of a consumer and a storage area; and

selecting, substantially automatically, multimedia-content to be broadcast to the consumer based on said receiving.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a selection of the multimedia-content is made contemporaneous with the information obtained from at least one of the consumer and the storage area.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimedia-content is at least one of video, audio, and data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising scheduling the multimedia-content to be broadcast to the consumer based on said selecting.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said scheduling is based on criteria.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the criteria includes consideration of at least one of;

whether the multimedia-content has been consumed yet;

how many times the multimedia-content has been consumed;

whether the multimedia-content has been deleted or tagged for deletion;

if the multimedia-content is still in the storage area;

whether the multimedia-content is intended to be saved/archived; and

whether the storage area is categorized.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving is accomplished with at least one of a telephone, a dial-up modem, a cable television vision communication, a network, the Internet, and a wireless communication.

8. A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions, which when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform the steps comprising selecting substantially automatically, multimedia-content to be broadcast to a consumer, based on information obtained from at least one of the consumers and a storage area.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising scheduling multimedia-content to be broadcast to the consumer based on said selecting.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising receiving the information from at least one of the consumer and the storage area.

11. A method comprising:

receiving a selection of multimedia content; and

broadcasting the selection of the multimedia-content to a consumer, wherein the selection is based on information obtained from at least one of the consumer and a storage area.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the selection of the multimedia-content is made contemporaneous with the information obtained from the consumer.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein said broadcasting is accomplished using opportunistic insertion of data.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein said broadcasting is accomplished with a substantially dedicated channel having a fixed transmission bandwidth.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the multimedia-content is at least one of video, audio, and data.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the multimedia-content is at least one of video, audio, and data.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein said managing is based on a policy.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the policy includes consideration of at least one of;

whether the multimedia-content has been consumed yet;

how many times the multimedia-content has been consumed;

whether the multimedia-content has been deleted or tagged for deletion;

if the multimedia-content is still in the storage area;

whether the multimedia-content is intended to be saved/archived; and

whether the storage area is categorized.

16. A method comprising:

transferring multimedia content to a storage area, accessible to a consumer'"'"'s television system; and

managing the multimedia-content stored in the storage area.

20. A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions, which when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform the steps comprising managing multimedia-content stored in a storage area accessible to a consumer'"'"'s digital television system.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein said managing is based on a policy.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the multimedia-content is at least one of video, audio, and data.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the multimedia-content is selected contemporaneously with the information obtained from at least one of the consumer and said storage area.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the multimedia-content is at least one of video, audio, and data.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising:

a multimedia content scheduler, configured to communicate with said multimedia-content selector, to schedule the multimedia-content to be broadcast to the consumer.

28. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising:

a processor configured to receive the information and execute instructions that select the multimedia-content to be broadcast to the consumer; and

a storage area configured to allow communication with said processor.

29. The apparatus of claim 26, further comprising:

a multimedia-content data base server, to store new multimedia-content, some of which is selected to be broadcast to the consumer.

23. An apparatus comprising:

a digital television receiver; and

a storage area to store multimedia-content;

wherein the multimedia-content is selected based on information obtained from at least one of a consumer and said storage area.

26. An apparatus comprising:

a multimedia-content selector to select multimedia-content, substantially automatically, to be broadcast to a consumer, based on information obtained from at least one of the consumer and a storage area.