Advertisement management system for digital video streams
First Claim
1. A method for managing selection and insertion of advertisements, the method comprising:
- determining an avail bandwidth for an advertisement opportunity within a program stream;
receiving advertisement characteristics for a plurality of advertisements, wherein the advertisement characteristics include intended target market characteristics and minimum bandwidth requirements, wherein the minimum bandwidth requirements represent required amount of bandwidth available within the program stream for the advertisement to be inserted; and
selecting targeted advertisements for insertion into the advertisement opportunity, wherein the targeted advertisements are selected by comparing the avail bandwidth and the minimum bandwidth requirements.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An Ad Management System (AMS) for managing sales and insertion of targeted advertisements into advertising opportunities (“avails”). The AMS provides advertisers an ability to describe their advertisements (ad characteristics) in terms of target market demographics, required ad bandwidth, ad duration, and other ad specific parameters. The AMS receives the ad characteristics and matches the ads to the avails. The AMS tracks different avails including duration and bandwidth of the avail, and uses a number of schemes to determine if the ad can be placed in the avail including comparing bandwidth requirements. The AMS targets advertisements by correlating subscriber characteristics to the ad characteristics. The subscriber characteristics may be associated with groups of subscribers (e.g. nodes in cable television environments) or to individual subscribers
330 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method for managing selection and insertion of advertisements, the method comprising:
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determining an avail bandwidth for an advertisement opportunity within a program stream;
receiving advertisement characteristics for a plurality of advertisements, wherein the advertisement characteristics include intended target market characteristics and minimum bandwidth requirements, wherein the minimum bandwidth requirements represent required amount of bandwidth available within the program stream for the advertisement to be inserted; and
selecting targeted advertisements for insertion into the advertisement opportunity, wherein the targeted advertisements are selected by comparing the avail bandwidth and the minimum bandwidth requirements. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method for managing selection and insertion of advertisements, the method comprising:
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recognizing an avail in a program stream, wherein the avail has an avail bandwidth associated therewith;
receiving advertisement characteristics for a plurality of advertisements, wherein the advertisement characteristics include minimum bandwidth requirements, wherein the minimum bandwidth requirements represent required amount of bandwidth available within the program stream for the advertisement to be inserted; and
determining a set of advertisements that can be inserted into the avail, wherein said determining is based on whether the avail bandwidth is at least the minimum bandwidth requirements; and
selecting an advertisement for insertion from the set of advertisements. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21)
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22. A computer based method for managing selection and insertion of advertisements into a program stream, the method comprising:
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receiving a program stream having a time varying bit rate and at least one advertisement insertion opportunity, and wherein the at least one advertisement insertion opportunity has an advertisement insertion opportunity bit rate;
selecting an advertisement for insertion into the program stream, wherein the advertisement has a minimum acceptable bit rate, wherein the minimum acceptable bit rate represents minimum amount of bit rate that must be available for the advertisement to be played in an acceptable format;
determining if the minimum acceptable bit rate is greater than or less than the advertisement insertion opportunity bit rate; and
inserting the advertisement when the minimum acceptable bit rate is less than the advertisement insertion opportunity bit rate. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24)
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Specification