System and method of providing triggered event commands via digital program insertion splicing

• US 20050015816A1
• Filed: 10/29/2003
• Published: 01/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Broadband Royalty Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: nCUBE Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.), ACTV, Inc. (Kudelski SA)
• Inventors: Riedl, Stephen, Christofalo, Michael G.
• Application Number:
  US10/695,663
• Publication Number:
  US 20050015816A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/136
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6543 for forcing some client operations, e.g. recording remote booting in general G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/854 Content authoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

Systems and methods for the insertion of commands and/or other data into a digital programming stream are described. These command and/or data may be inserted into digital advertisement or other programs and may utilized by any device which is involved in the generation, transmission, reception and/or presentation of content via a digital programming stream.

Claims

1. A system for inserting commands into a digital programming signal comprising:

a digital ad server which generates at least one message having an attached command; and

a digital splicer which receives the message from the ad server, extracts the attached command and splices the command into a digital transport stream.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the message further comprises a message which is in a DVS380 compliant format.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the DVS380 compliant message includes at least one descriptor.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the DVS380 message further comprises a DVS380 splice request message.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the descriptor includes at least one field for inserting a command instruction.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the descriptor includes at least one field for specifying a time difference from a reference time at which to insert the command into a digital transport stream.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the digital ad server generates at least one message having more than one commands.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the message further comprises a delta time indication from a pre-determined reference and the digital splicer splices the command into a digital transport stream based upon a calculation of the delta time with the reference and the current time.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the command is spliced into the digital transport stream on a frame accurate basis.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is in the DVS380 standardized message format and the command is provided in a descriptor field.